


Mindscape Coffee

by Not_You



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Bill Cipher is fucking weird, Clubbing, College Student Dipper Pines, Crossdressing, Dreams, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, Physical Disability, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Orientation, Sloppy Makeouts, bill is not a demon... this time, bill still only has the one eye, but we don't have a 'way less supernatural tag' so i'm not sure what to do here, glass eyes, if bill only had one helmet he would give it to you, the previous tag is a lie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mabel's current favorite coffeeshop has a seriously weird barista, and he's probably hitting on Dipper.  Dipper is not sure what to do about this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I said I would never do this, and I blame nobrandhero for enabling me. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Dipper sighs, holding the phone a bit away from his ear as Mabel's volume rises. “They have _unicorn sprinkles_ , Dipper!”

“Okay, okay! I'll get you and your friends your heroin. Lemme write this down.”

Dipper hasn't seen Mabel in a whole week, so he's willing to go to some weird little coffee shop and juice bar place that Mabel is completely addicted to and get three bizarre girly drinks. Naturally his sister is living in one of the artsiest and weirdest neighborhoods in town, and of course he's going to have to go order a Strawberries And Cream frappe with unicorn sprinkles for her. 

Dipper tries not to worry too much about his masculine self-image, but he's only flesh and blood, and can only imagine how hideously pink the thing must be. He'll find out soon enough, closing the distance to the small shop in its odd location. He wonders if he can get normal lemonade there, or if that's just a pipe dream. Ordinarily he would go for normal coffee with just a splash of cream and maybe some caramel syrup, but it's probably ninety degrees in the shade today.

Mindscape Coffee looks just as weird as he was afraid it would, the very door frame painted black and adorned with staring yellow eyes, but it's also dim and cool after all that glaring sun, and Dipper is profoundly grateful for it. The interior walls are black too, with strange, non-Euclidean forms painted in metallic tones. There's no one ahead of him, and most of the gleaming black tables are unoccupied, black iron art nouveau chairs neatly pushed in.

Dipper steps up to the counter, glad to see things that sound like the ones on his list written on the menu boards. Mabel has a bad habit of making things up and expecting a place's entire staff to learn it, made all the worse by the positive reinforcement it gets from all the people who do remember.

“Good afternoon, my delectable public!” a flamboyant male barista booms, and Dipper reminds himself that he owes Mabel, and does not flee. The guy is tall and thin, with yellow hair and wildly mismatched eyes. “How may I help you?” he asks, beaming at Dipper like this is the best day of his life. Dipper wonders if he's high, but if drug use kept food service employees from doing their jobs, the industry would have collapsed by now.

“Uh, yeah,” Dipper says, digging his list out. “I've gotta order for some friends, first.”

“A Strawberries And Cream Frappe with unicorn sprinkles, a Candy Crush, and a Godzilla?”

He stares in surprise and then keeps staring because the man is wearing a bow tie with what appears to be a yellow t-shirt with Pikachu markings, the collar and sleeves torn off. “...Yes.”

“Your sister and her friends come in here all the time,” he says, still beaming. He's so happy that it's kind of creepy, but he doesn't seem actively dangerous. So far. “So if they'd like the usual, what shall I get for you?”

Dipper glances around to make sure that there isn't a line forming behind him. There isn't. “I've never been here,” he says, “I need to think about it.”

“Okay,” the barista says, setting up the other drinks as Dipper finds pink lemonade on the menu, which is good enough.

“Excuse me?” he calls over the running blenders, and the man is instantly at the counter again.

“Bill,” he says.

“Uh, hi, Bill,” Dipper says, wishing he blinked more often or didn't lean forward quite so much or something. He's weird. Very weird.

“Guess which eye is glass!” Bill chirps, with that same ear-to-ear smile.

It takes Dipper about two seconds to parse the actual words, another moment to wonder who the hell asks a customer something like that, and then his brain slides into problem-solving mode and he studies that bony, pale face for a moment, with its spray of a few dark freckles across the bridge of the nose. Between the pale skin and the yellow-blonde hair, the gleaming green eye on the right makes more sense with Bill's coloration as a whole. The other is so dark Dipper can't see where the pupil ends and the iris begins.

“The black one,” Dipper says, and Bill laughs. He blinks hard and the green eye pops out. Dipper jumps and yelps, transfixed as it describes a shimmering arc in the air before Bill catches it in one long, elegant hand, holding it up and pointing the pupil at Dipper as if the glass eye is looking at him.

“Wrong!” he says, with childlike glee. He pops the eye back into its socket and washes his hands as he asks Dipper what he would like.

“Pink lemonade, please,” Dipper tells him, the encounter now so surreal that he's almost expecting to wake up. Bill bounces off to pour the blended drinks, dousing the pink one in neon rainbow sprinkles shaped like unicorns. Dipper has to assume that the green thing with a plastic lizard hooked onto the rim is a Godzilla, and if the white thing with multicolored bits and a wrapped salt water taffy isn't a Candy Crush, that isn't Dipper's fault. The pink lemonade is more involved than he was expecting, with fresh lemon juice and some kind of pink syrup. The bottle isn't actually labeled, and Dipper hopes that it's nothing too gross.

“The syrup is a proprietary blend,” Bill tells him, as if he's reading his mind. He puts all four drinks into a cardboard holder, sticking a plastic sword through a wedge of what looks like Cara cara orange and setting it into Dipper's drink along with a straw. “It's free of most common allergens and I will personally replace your drink if you don't like it.”

Dipper chuckles, picking up the cup and swiveling the pink articulated straw to facilitate tasting. “Playing a dangerous game, aren't you?”

“Not really,” Bill says, and after he takes a long sip, Dipper has to admit that the strawberry-rose-whatever is pretty delicious. Bill just smirks at him.

Dipper narrows his eyes as he slots his cup into the holder and then picks the whole thing up, shifting it to one hand to put a dollar into the tip jar, because freaky or not, Bill has filled Dipper's order correctly and quickly . Shifting the holder back to a two-handed grip he says, “I'm going to figure out that syrup recipe, Bill.”

Bill just beams at him as he steps away from the counter, and calls, “Have a nice day! Don't choke on our delicious concoctions! Or if so, don't die!”

Dipper shudders, and walks away quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

Mabel's apartment is a riot of color, naturally, but Dipper has to admit that it's pretty cool that her drink matches the rug they're sitting on. Like most twenty-somethings, Mabel doesn't have a lot of furniture. Or air conditioning, and the dress code is sundresses and undershirts as Dipper continues to sip his lemonade, trying to tease out the individual notes in the pink syrup. Definitely rose and strawberry, but the others fade in and out, more elusive the more he tries to taste them. There might be cinnamon in here, it's hard to say. Maybe some cherry?

“Was Bill there today?” Mabel asks him. “He actually knows how many sprinkles are enough.”

“Bill was there today,” Dipper says, rolling his eyes. “He's a freak. What the hell is that thing with his glass eye?”

“Ooooh, he does that when he thinks someone's cute!” Mabel says, grinning. Candy and Grenda grin too, and Dipper glares back at them.

“He's gonna die alone, then,” he says, and slurps his drink in grumpy silence before the full meaning of the statement hits him. He yelps and almost spews lemonade everywhere. “What?!”

“Hee, Bill thinks you're cute!” Mabel crows.

“Well, I'm not gay!” Dipper screeches in a voice he hasn't heard from himself since he was about thirteen.

Mabel rolls her eyes and licks up some more whipped cream and sprinkles. “You're _kinda_ gay, Dipper, and you know it.”

“Only a little! A very little! I'm like, a Kinsey 1.5!”

“Do you think Bill's cute?” Mabel asks the room at large. “I think he's kinda cute.”

“He has pretty hands,” Grenda volunteers, and Candy tilts her head, considering.

“I think he is cute, even if he dresses like a moron.”

“He has a charming retro sensibility,” Mabel says, sticking her tongue out and going back to her drink.

“The man was wearing a Pikachu shirt,” Dipper informs them.

“Oh,” Mabel says, “like a graphic, or solid?”

“Solid,” Dipper says, taking another sip and trying to decipher that pink taste. “Didn't really go with his tie.”

“Bill always wears a tie,” Mabel says. “It might be cultural, he's from Europe or something.”

“He's from goddamn Creepyland,” Dipper says, his drink finished and the mystery still unresolved. “He told me not to choke on his delicious concoctions, or if so, to not die.”

Mabel laughs. “I'd rather have a barista who cares than one who doesn't.”

“I'd rather have a barista who makes a perfect Candy Crush,” Candy coos, still sipping her drink.

“What is even in that?” Dipper asks her.

Grenda answers, Candy too busy getting her fix. “It's a lychee-vanilla slushie with crushed sugar candies in it,” she says, and Dipper grimaces.

With everyone cooled down by their preferred libation, Dipper can listen to Mabel's report on how her friend's art show went, and who's in love with whom and the details of all the current blood feuds at the artist's co-op where Mabel does most of her work. Soos is helping her to build an animatronic dragon skeleton that will probably be puking glitter all over some art installation by this time next month. Dipper of course promises to go see it, and puts it into the calender on his phone. If Mabel could make it to his graduation despite being up to her eyeballs in modeling clay and grant applications, Dipper will find the time to watch her dragon puke glitter. Or whatever.

Dipper is also going to find the time to figure out what the hell is in this syrup. As Mabel and her friends chatter on about their various projects, like Candy's attempt to develop a scaled-down Taser and Grenda's to bench-press more than three hundred pounds, he peers into his clear plastic cup at the pale pink droplets still lingering at the bottom. He carefully picks one up on the end of his straw and tastes it, trying to isolate the lemon from the pink... ness. He shifts a little to let Grenda and Candy pass by him toward the kitchen and the bathroom, still completely engrossed.

“Dipper, what are you doing?” Mabel asks, popping right up beside him without appearing to cross the intervening space.

“Gah!” He jumps and almost drops the cup. “Don't _do_ that! And I'm trying to figure out what's in this syrup.”

“Why didn't you just ask Bill?”

“He said it was a proprietary blend! And he's freaky.”

“Lots of people are freaky,” Mabel says, and Dipper rolls his eyes.

“He's not artist-freaky, he's freaky-freaky. And apparently hitting on me.”

“It is about time you started seeing someone again,” Mabel says, very gently, and Dipper groans, flopping onto his back.

“The thing with Pacifica was not that big a deal!”

“Dipper, you spent a week in bed and made dying cow noises any time 'In Your Eyes' came on, it was at least kind of a big deal.” She flops down beside him, studying his face. “I worry about you sometimes. You get locked up in your head and don't know you're lonely.”

“Even if I am,” he grumbles, “somehow I don't think that a maniac in a Pikachu shirt is the answer.”

“Maybe not,” she says, “but you could check.”

Dipper just laughs, and then they sit up so that they can rejoin the conversation and stop being all serious and twinlike as Grenda returns with a bowl of chips and Candy follows a moment later with some lip gloss that of course Mabel will let her borrow. Thankfully, Candy has a prospect of her own for everyone to talk about. Some long-haired artist type who so far _doesn't_ make out with puppets. Or flirt by popping out his glass eye, what the fuck. It's a good start.

Dipper stays longer than he means to, and of course has to make the time up hunched over his laptop at two am when he has somewhere to be at eight. He sometimes misses sharing a room with Mabel, but it's nice not to have anyone trying to sleep, or telling him that only drunks and hobos go to bed with their shoes on. Of course, Mabel, goodhearted and loving sister that she is, would pull the shoes off for him and probably only draw a small design on him, somewhere he could cover it up. As it is, he tips over meaning to sit up again and take his shoes off, but it's just not happening.

Instead he's immediately in some deep and feverish dream. The air is like being underwater and he's in some kind of establishment with mirrors on the ceiling and people sitting next to them, pouring tea that doesn't spill. Dipper wants to figure them out, stand here and just look for a bit, but the light levels are low and there are these big hulking beings wandering around and incidentally shoving him. They don't seem cruel, he just gets gently shunted out of their way until he's suddenly at the bar on the other side of the room. 

And there's Bill, still in his Pikachu shirt and that stupid tie, grinning at him. “Hi,” he says, in a voice of fire and thunder and something more insinuating than either, words carving themselves into the reality of the dream, “may I help you?”


	3. Chapter 3

Dipper wakes up before his alarm, and his first utterance of the day is, “What the fuck?!” 

He almost picks up his phone to call Mabel, but decides against it because she's probably still in bed and would of course be just delighted to know that he's _dreaming_ about fucking Bill. He pauses, and offers up a little prayer of gratitude that it wasn't literally a dream about fucking Bill.

Weird Studies is a relatively new field, and Dipper feels a personal responsibility to show up on time and every single day, and do everything else he can to do well and add to the discipline's legitimacy. Even on four hours of sleep. He's at least not running late, and has time to check himself in the men's room when he arrives, making sure that he's presentable. Dipper carries a clean t-shirt in his backpack as a matter of course, but today he doesn't need it. His hair is curling out from under his cap in a silly way, but it's no worse than usual. He washes his hands and heads to Weird Biology 602, one of those massive lectures that he technically doesn't have to show up for at all. They don't even have clickers, but Dipper likes Professor McGucket, and he leaves meticulous notes for the T. A.s, so they can continue almost as well any time his cognitive problems act up.

Today McGucket is in top form, though, greeting the class with polite reserve and a proper shave. Dipper always feels guilty for thinking that he's more fun when he's stubbly and just a little vague, but these days are good, too. They're still working on gnome regurgitation, diagramming the mechanism of the tiny light emitters in each one's digestive tract. Dipper is fascinated, taking so many notes that by the time he leaves, his hand feels like it's on fire. He uses his left to answer the phone, which is of course blaring 'Taking Over Midnight,' since Mabel insists on it, and it is a handy identifier.

“Yeah, Mabel?” he says, cramming books into his backpack with his free hand.

“Dipper, are you willing to paint some scales later tonight?”

Mabel always asks questions like this, somehow never learning that most people need context for these things. 

“What?”

“For my dragon! They moved the thing up, and if the dragon is going to be half as cool as I meant it to be, I need all the help I can get. I'll make dinner,” she adds.

Dipper agrees without too much of a pang for his own quiet, neat room, and after his last class he takes the bus to Mabel's building. She buzzes him up, and is of course covered in paint when she opens the door, just stopping herself from hugging him.

“Right, paint. Hi, Dipper! Come in, you can use my room to study for a while before I put you to work.” She stands aside to let him in, and he starts picking his way between sheet-covered chairs, card tables, and other improvised drying racks, all covered with metal scales. For some reason Dipper had been expecting the dragon's scales to be green, but they're different gleaming metallic colors, mostly silver and gold, with some black and of course a few in metallic pink. Each one is about three inches long, and almost every surface in the room is covered with them, a few fans set up to aid drying.

Candy and Grenda are here already, each of them wearing one of Mabel's many smocks and carefully painting a scale. He greets them both as Mabel ushers him through the job site and back into her bedroom, which is a pretty good scholastic environment in its own right. If Dipper can't be at home or the library, at least he has a clear, well-lit desk and a comfortable chair at his disposal. Even if it is fuzzy and neon green. 

As soon as he's comfortably settled, Dipper dives into translating Old Zanglish and doesn't look up until Mabel calls him to eat. His head jerks up, and he's shocked to see how much the sun has moved. A glance at the clock tells him that it's half-past six, and he grimaces. He's supposed to be helping Mabel, and three and a half hours is a really long while. He scurries out to join the others, the rest of the apartment full of the smell of paint.

Mabel just laughs when he apologizes, and sends him to the bathroom to wash his hands. Upon his return, Grenda slaps him on the back and nearly knocks him over, grinning at him.

“There you are! You want Mabeljuice, or lemonade?”

Mabeljuice contains alcohol now, but that doesn't seem to bother the plastic dinosaurs. It's actually pretty good, but Dipper doesn't believe in starting tasks he's not good at when he's not perfectly sober. “Lemonade, thanks,” he says, straightening up again.

“Lightweights for life,” Candy says when they're gathered around the table, clicking her glass of lemonade to Dipper's. 

He laughs. “Besides, I'm starting my shift, not ending it.”

“It's okay, Dipper,” Mabel says.

“It will be when I spend three and a half hours painting scales.”

“Don't stay up too late, Dipper.”

He waves a hand at her. “Tomorrow's my late start.” It's true, he doesn't have to be anywhere until half-past eleven, and he just hopes he doesn't get too exhausted tonight. At least he has chili-mango-chicken casserole to fortify him for the task. Mabel is a weird cook, but it's not bad weird, and there's plenty for everyone.

After dinner, Candy and Grenda make their departure and Dipper tackles the scales with the same focus he brings to Old Zanglish. He may not be any good at art, but this is like painting a wall. He just needs to cover the entire scale in the right color, and Mabel even shows him which way to sweep the brush. He's not sure of the actual pattern or if there even is one, just switching colors whenever Mabel tells him to.

After hours of scales, Mabel yawns so wide that Dipper is a little worried about her jaw. His own cracks when the contagion gets him, and he groans. “Mabel!”

“It's not like I can help it! It's nearly midnight.”

Dipper groans, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand. “Coffee?”

“I need sprinkles.”

“Mabel...”

“Go down to Mindscape and get us an extra-large Death March,” she says, digging a ten-dollar bill out of her pocket.

Dipper pulls off his borrowed smock. “Are they even open?”

“A bit longer, get going.”

He scrubs the paint off of his hands, takes the money, and heads out. The streets are deserted, and he can't believe it when he approaches Mindscape to see its OPEN sign still blazing. As he opens the door he worries about running into Bill, but what kind of shift would have him here in the early afternoon and this late at night?

“Well, hello!” Bill cries, beaming at him. “Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?” he asks, winking the glass eye out of his head and catching it, holding it out like it's really giving him another perspective on Dipper.

Dipper sighs. “Hi.”

“You know,” Bill says, returning the eye to its socket, “you dream yourself shorter than you are.”


	4. Chapter 4

Very rarely has Dipper felt physically cold with terror, but he does now. It's like there's literally ice water in his veins, and he makes a strangled noise in his throat. Bill looks at him with concern, and it's really terrible to have to be afraid of someone in a sleeveless, cropped turtleneck with a question mark on it. He staggers back, staring at Bill, who sighs.

“Dipper, darling, reality is an illusion and the universe is a hologram, so there's no need to get worked up.”

“That is not comforting!” Dipper yelps. He's still terrified, but now he's at least annoyed enough to be able to speak again. “What the hell are you?”

“A human, I swear!”

“Bullshit!”

“Erebib ainmos,” he intones, and Dipper finishes with him, stunned, “mus goas recnam orieno.” It's a standard formula in Old Zanglish, the language of what academics call Applied Weirdness and everyone else just calls magic.

“You're an oneiromancer?” Dipper does his best not to get shrill, because there hasn't been a true oneiromancer in the United States since 1847, and even that account is of dubious veracity.

“Yes!” Bill chirps. “See? Nothing to be afraid of, just a magic user who wanders the Dreaming. I liked running into you, but I guess you don't remember the part where I served you the concept of blue. It's delicious as a drink.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dipper mutters. His heart is still pounding and he's still creeped out, but also profoundly relieved. “Stay out of my head,” he says, and Bill snorts.

“Stay in it if you don't want to meet people,” he says, planting his hands on his hips. “Now, what would you like?”

“...My sister wanted an extra-large Death March.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, and makes an enormous amount of incredibly strong coffee in a foam to-go cup with a staring eye on it, adding what looks like two energy shots, three kinds of syrup, and a lot of cream. Whipped cream on top and a sugar skull and crossbones complete it, but Bill also throws on a heroic amount of unicorn sprinkles, beaming as he turns and sets the drink on the counter. 

“How much for the extra sprinkles?” Dipper asks as he digs out the cash Mabel gave him, the question ridiculous in its normalcy.

“No charge,” Bill says, the tips of his spidery fingers brushing Dipper's palm as he takes the money. 

The way his green eye sparkles is so lifelike that it's creepy, but in a kind of compelling way. As he waits for his change, Dipper has to admit to himself that Bill is cute, whatever that means. It's something in the high cheekbones, the long, sly curl of his mouth, and the delicate point of his chin. It feels like a defeat, and Dipper shudders.

“There. One portrait of George Washington, assorted zinc sandwiches.”

“Do you always talk like that?” Dipper asks, pulling out another dollar to throw into the tip jar with the first one, pocketing the coins. Bill makes a strange and graceful bow in wordless thanks for the tip, and then pops right back up.

“No,” he says, “sometimes I talk like this!” he continues in rapid-fire modern Zanglish, and Dipper laughs, only catching about one word in ten.

“You're right, I shouldn't give you crap about your English.”

“You shouldn't,” he says, grinning, “but I forgive you.”

Dipper chuckles. “Thanks,” he says, and heads for the door.

“Goodnight!” Bill calls after him, “Stay inside your own head!”

The door swings shut before Dipper can reply, even if he could think of anything to say to that. He risks a sip of the Death March on the way back to Mabel's, and he has to assume that methamphetamine feels much the same, just more intense. There's a weird flavor that he can't place, and he has to remind himself to stop drinking both to be fair to Mabel and to keep his heart from exploding.

When Mabel lets him into the apartment again, she's covered in more paint than ever, and Dipper can't believe the number of completed scales set up to dry, the dry ones neatly stacked in cardboard boxes. “Omigod, unicorns!” Mabel squeals when she sees the sprinkles, and Dipper chuckles.

“Thank Bill,” he says.

“I will,” Mabel mumbles around the straw, slurping down a substantial portion before taking a break to crunch up the sugar skull.

“I think _you're_ the one who should date him,” Dipper says, and Mabel giggles. “Hey, he did remember your sprinkle preferences, free of charge.”

“This is only because he doesn't know your usual order yet and can't give you little extras. Give him time.”

They continue to gently bicker over Bill's levels of cuteness and interest, passing the Death March back and forth. The thing works too well, and Dipper feels more than a little high as he hugs Mabel in farewell and goes down to meet his cab. The moon is full and yellow where it hangs just over the rooftops, and as Dipper watches it, he could swear that it turns into a vast eye, that stares down at him for what feels like forever, and then it blinks, or winks at him, he's not sure which, and he's waking up outside his building. 

Dipper lives barely off-campus, in a duplex with three other guys, and he steps softly, wending his way up to his bedroom, dumping his things on the floor and then staggering into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He should maybe eat something, but it's beyond his power right now, and he slides back into sleep, where he teaches a class on how to eat existential terror and then walks into a painting of a mountainside, clambering over sharp grey rocks and wondering if he shouldn't have stayed where he was. 

A sudden burst of gold light makes him look up, and he jumps at the sight of a blazing triangle with one fierce, black eye in the center. It floats overhead, and Dipper feels a powerful and ancient mammalian instinct to crawl under a rock. The nearest one of the right size will only hide about half of his body, but he tries.

“Erebib ainmos,” the triangle booms, “mus goas recnam orieno.” 

It's that same voice from Dipper's dream about Bill, thunder and fire and whispering shadows. He shivers, staring up at the massive and incomprehensible shape in the sky. The translated Old Zanglish runs something like, 'human am I, a drinker of dreams,' which is how oneiromancers traditionally identify themselves to their fellow dreamers. It's hard to reconcile with this impossible 2-D abstract, but Dipper manages to call, “Ainmos coganeh wo!” a demand that the other offer proof of their humanity and/or acquaintance with the speaker.

The triangle shrinks, floating down to be eye-level with Dipper. It hovers there, and suddenly the whole yellow surface is a screen displaying Bill's side of their last conversation. It's weird for Dipper to see himself this way, and he grimaces to get such a good look at the stupid curls escaping from under his cap, and his usual three o'clock shadow intensified into true wino trim. When the playback reaches the point where Bill broke into Zanglish, there are subtitles along the bottom edge, and he stares at them.

“No, sometimes I talk like this!” Bill says in the memory, “ _And it's kind of lonely, not being understood, but I can tell adorable straight boys that they're adorable right in front of them, and that's pretty cool._ ”

A skinny black arm, like something from an ink drawing, shoots out of one side of the triangle, thumping the edge. “Can't believe the subtitles are stuck on,” Bill grumbles, and Dipper bursts into slightly cracked laughter.


	5. Chapter 5

It's satisfying to see Bill off-balance for once, but of course he recovers from embarrassment much more quickly than Dipper ever will.

“Oh well! It's not as if you didn't know I liked you,” Bill chirps, and Dipper smiles at him.

“It's not as if I didn't know,” he says, and he means to go on, to say something about being mostly straight and all confused, but he stops and stares as as two massive, blimp-like things float into view. They take up enormous amounts of sky, and must be miles across. They're nearly featureless ellipsoids, but Dipper knows with the knowledge of dreams that they're intelligent.

“They're usually not hostile,” Bill says, still a floating triangle. Now the screen has been replaced by a single black eye on a yellow field, and as Dipper watches, the triangle sprouts arms, legs, and a top hat, Bill's tie appearing beneath the eye. “But usually only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Let me do the talking.”

Dipper really doesn't have much choice, as the Bill-triangle floats into the sky again, gaining size as it goes. He watches as the enormous triangle and the two near-spheres talk to each other in what looks like clouds of bubbles. Dipper is trying to figure out any sort of pattern when the whole mountain starts to shake and he becomes much more interested in clinging to one of the largest boulders.

“Come on, come on!” Bill is suddenly yelling into his ear, black hands like living India ink drawings as they grab Dipper by the upper arms and fly him away as a dim, purplish cloud comes swarming up the mountain. Even in the middle of yelling alarm as Bill carries him into the void, Dipper is curious about it.

“Those are dream mites!” Bill yells over their headwind. “The Violet Menace!”

The Violet Menace has come up in some of the older and dustier of Dipper's books, and he shudders. They eat the Dreaming itself, which makes them a vital part of the ecosystem, keeping it from overtaking physical reality. They don't separate Dreaming from dreamer, and Dipper breaks into a cold sweat as he realizes how close he just came to being consumed. He makes a tiny noise of utter terror in his throat, and clutches desperately at the edge of the triangle as the cloud comes higher, reaching the mountaintop and then eating the sky, close enough now to clearly be billions of humming purple things with round bodies and what seem like hundreds of tiny legs, their jaws flashing infinitesimal points of light as they devour reality.

“There, there!” Bill shouts, swooping and banking the right as most of the sky disappears, “I won't let them get you!” Dipper can only reply by way of another strangled noise. “Our escape hatch is just ahead!”

Sure enough, there's a hole in the sky getting bigger and bigger as they approach, opening onto starry blackness, instead of the colorless nothing left behind by the dream mites. The purple cloud roils closer, and Dipper suddenly thinks of the blue things and hopes they got away as he looks back at the billions upon billions of flashing jaws, and then he and Bill are blasting into the blackness. It feels like they're shattering a window without making any noise or getting cut, a truly bizarre sensation that Dipper wishes he could take notes on. The chittering hum of the dream mites cuts off like someone hit the mute button, and the two of them are floating in space, distant stars glimmering in different colors.

“Phew,” Bill says, still holding on to Dipper, “that was a close one! This is why I told you to stay in your own head. What would you do without me?”

“Get eaten, I guess,” Dipper says, still trembling a bit. “Uh, can we like, hold hands or something? This position is weird.”

“O frabjous day,” Bill chirps, letting go of Dipper, who floats up beside him and takes that bizarre, barely-real hand. “I thought you'd never ask.”

“Don't get cocky,” Dipper tells him, even as he squeezes his hand. It feels like it's made of paper, but infinitely more durable than that would imply. Bill squeezes back. “Do you think the blue things got out?”

“I wouldn't worry about them,” he says, and then makes a loud, strange noise that rings through the void in the exact way that sound shouldn't. 

It's like an enormous bell, layered with white noise and thunder. As it fades into strange, whispery echoes that make Dipper think of fire, the blue things float into view again. Dipper knows that these are the same ones, even if they're as featureless as ever. They speak to Bill in bubbles again, and then suddenly both of them have speech bubbles, hovering in the velvety black. A flurry of symbols flash by in the bubbles, glowing pink hearts and equations and images of the earth from space. Somehow, Dipper understands this as their being touched by his concern and quite all right.

“I'm glad you're okay,” he says, hoping that words will work. In return he feels a wave of understanding and fondness that goes through his very bones, and the blue things vanish again, the stars shimmering where they were. “...Wow,” is all Dipper can think to say, and Bill chuckles.

“They're pretty impressive. C'mon, kid, I'll take you back to your own skull.”

“So, how does this work, anyway?” Dipper asks. They start floating in some definite direction in the vastness, still holding hands. It seems weird to let go, now.

“Most people stay in their own heads and kind of watch the Dreaming through a window,” Bill says, gently tugging on Dipper's hand to get him out of the way of an enormous glimmering fish that swims between the stars as if this is a perfectly normal thing for a fish to do. Dipper stares over his shoulder as it passes, and Bill continues, “Oneiromancers have the ability to leave their heads and travel through the Dreaming. Sometimes without knowing it, like you.”

“So I don't have to worry about everyone being eaten by dream mites?”

“Pretty much,” Bill says, and they're suddenly falling, gravity returning all at once in a roller coaster swoop. Dipper yelps and Bill laughs as they tumble down and down and down, finally floating through the roof of his building. He just gets a glimpse of his own sleeping body, and then slams into it, waking up instantly. He shoots upright in bed, eyes huge.

“Bill?” he asks, and of course he's alone. This is the waking world. 

He shivers and gets up, wrapping the top blanket around his shoulders. He's up before his alarm, and starts a pot of coffee, scribbling down notes on everything he can remember and wondering when Bill's next shift at Mindscape starts.


	6. Chapter 6

It's like some kind of law of physics in action that when Dipper makes a trip to Mindscape specifically to see Bill, he's not there. It's even a Wednesday afternoon like it was when they met, but no. Instead of Bill, there's some spiky-haired girl in an eye-patch. It's shaped like a heart and matches her vivid pink hair and dress. She's just blazing pink all over, except for some white accessories, including a bow tie like Bill's.

“Hi!” Her voice is high and scratchy, and she's quieter than Bill, but their manner is almost completely the same, which is to say, expansive and weird. “What can I get you?” She grins, revealing snaggly teeth and planting her hands on the counter for support as she leans forward.

“Uh... Sorry, I really came here because I need to talk to Bill. I haven't been thinking about my order.”

“You're lucky there's no line, kid,” she says, straightening up again, and Dipper snorts.

“Please, give me a little credit. When I don't know what I want, I step out of line instead of being a roadblock.”

The girl grins. “Awesome, you have some idea how to be a person. Anyway, Bill's my roommate and road-kin, or whatever you call it in English.”

“Road-kin?”

“You know, when you go to another country at the same time as a friend, so you can look out for each other.”

“I don't think we have a word for that,” Dipper says, “but I know what you mean.” It's another hot day, and if Bill isn't here, there's still a mystery to work on. “And I'd like a pink lemonade, please.”

She chuckles, and starts juicing the lemon. “Bill says you're trying to figure out what the mix is.”

“I can't help it,” Dipper says, “I'm curious.” 

The girl continues to look amused as she puts the drink together, with the same pink orange wedge and plastic sword. Dipper thanks her when she hands it to him, and is so busy juggling it and looking for cash and then a little more for the tip jar that he doesn't even notice that the paper wrapped around the cup is loose-leaf until he walks back out into the sunlight. The usual napkin is protecting it from the condensation, and he realizes he's holding a scrawled note from the barista, pink text crisp and clear:

 _Bill told me to give you this:_  
000-555-2455  
Best Wishes,  
Pyronica 

Dipper stares at it for a while. It seems so weird for Bill to have a phone number like a normal person, and not like, a sigil in human blood and glitter, or something. He thinks about just walking on to Mabel's and hanging on to the number for a while, but instead he turns the other way and goes to the park, sitting on a bench near the fence. He studies the number again, and then rolls his eyes at his own nerves.

"Just fucking call it already, Pines," he mutters, and punches the number in. It only rings a few times before Bill answers.

"Hi, Dipper!" he chirps, and the hair stands up on the back of Dipper's neck.

"How the hell do you recognize this number?" he shrieks, and Bill laughs.

"Just process of elimination! It was either you or a telemarketer, and I don't care if I misname a telemarketer! It's the least of the indignities they endure every day!"

Dipper relaxes, feeling like an idiot. "Uh. Okay. Um, anyway. Waking world thanks for the help last night."

“You're welcome! I'm always delighted to keep you from being reduced to a drooling husk!”

Dipper shudders. “Do you have to sound so chirpy about it?”

“I wouldn't if it had happened, but here we are! Where are you, anyway?”

“I'm in the park by Mindscape," Dipper says.

“I thought you might come by! I was covering for Pyronica when you met me, though.”

“Oh, so you actually are the night shift.”

“Mostly! I need to get breakfast, wanna come with me?”

It's about time for Dipper to have lunch, and he'd rather talk about all the weird dream stuff face-to-face anyway, so he agrees. Bill says something about Zanglish home cooking and orders Dipper to stay right where he is to be picked up. The bench has a good view of the street, so Dipper obeys. 

It's only about five minutes before a bright yellow moped pulls up to the curb. There's a pink helmet strapped to the seat behind Bill, and one of the rearview mirrors is held on with tape. There's also a WEIRDMAGGEDON bumper sticker on the side, and a few staring eyes in various colors are spray-painted onto the body. Bill's legs are really too long for it, and they glare white in the sun where they're exposed by what seem to be a pair of cut-off gabardine trousers. Black ankle boots that look like something a girl would wear, a ribbed undershirt, and the tie complete Bill's ensemble, and he grins, pulling off his yellow and eye-adorned helmet as Dipper walks up to him.

“Hey!” He unstraps the pink helmet. “Pyronica said you could use it,” he says, offering it to Dipper. Dipper takes off his cap, and Bill beams at him, looking completely delighted. At first Dipper doesn't get it, and then he can feel himself blushing as he rubs a self-conscious hand over his forehead.

“Heh. A guy doesn't pick up a name like 'Dipper' by accident,” he says.

“It's adorable!” Bill squeals, hands actually clasped under his chin.

Dipper squirms, unsure if he's more embarrassed by or for him, and Bill takes a moment to visibly collect himself before plucking the cap from Dipper's hand. He stashes it in the saddlebag as Dipper puts on the helmet. Pyronica must have a huge head, but Dipper gets the helmet adjusted down after a few seconds of fumbling. He climbs onto the seat behind Bill and does his best to _not_ picture what he looks like now, wearing a pink helmet while riding bitch on another man's moped. He can practically hear Mabel yelling at him for putting it that way, but he can't help it.

“Ready?” Bill asks, and Dipper nods, making sure his backpack is secure. “Okay, hold on!” He roars off so fast that Dipper really has no other choice, clinging to Bill's skinny waist. His body is harder than Dipper would have thought, wiry and taut. It's fascinating, and Dipper comes way too close to feeling Bill up before he catches himself, blushing and really glad that Bill can't see his face.

They don't go very far before turning into a neighborhood Dipper has never seen before, with narrow, crooked streets. The moped is a lot better for this than a car would be, and soon they're pulling up a strange little hole in the wall. It looks kind of like Mindscape, with a yellow eye painted on the black door. Dipper doesn't know much modern Zanglish, but he's pretty sure the sign translates to 'Grandmother's.' Bill parks close to the door and hops off, removing his helmet and then getting Dipper's cap out of the saddlebag for him.

“There you go!” he chirps, and Dipper puts it on while Bill straps both helmets down and then locks them and the saddlebag before leading Dipper into the restaurant. It's dark and cool inside, with a lot of strange-looking potted plants. A few of them move, very slowly, and Dipper stares as he follows Bill to a bilingual Please Wait To Be Seated sign.

Dipper doesn't know much about Zanglish cuisine, and is looking forward to finding out. He and Bill are the only people in the place, and the host seats them at a dark, secluded table which will be good for private conversation, and is a relief after the heat of the day. After fetching water and menus and informing them that today's special is cold eel soup, he wanders off again.

“I probably want the special,” Bill says, “but let me know if you have any questions. About the food. You need to listen to me about the Dreaming whether you have questions or not."


	7. Chapter 7

It is way beyond weird to be sitting in a Zanglish restaurant with a gay barista and listening to him talk about oneiromancy, but Dipper tries not to be an ungrateful person, and if it wasn't for Bill, someone would be trying to find a gentle and courteous way to inform Mabel that her twin is inexplicably brain-dead. It would have been worse than a regular death, since his family would be stuck deciding whether or not to pull the plug, and Dipper shivers, even though it's so warm that their glasses of ice water are sweating in the afternoon sunlight.

Bill pauses in the middle of an explanation of the fear cycle (which is like the water cycle but more alarming,) glass eye flashing as he tilts his head. "Are you all right?"

"Just a little delayed freakout," Dipper says, taking a deep breath and carefully _not_ thinking about Mabel being emotionally devastated.

"Kompot is good for freakouts." Bill says, "I'll get us some."

Dipper can't help chuckling at the offer of a beverage for existential terror, but it's nice that Bill cares. "Thanks, man," he says.

The timing turns out to be perfect, because their server arrives a moment later. He's a small, pallid guy with buzzed blue hair, one of those perma-scowl faces, and a huge keyhole tattoo on his forehead. He looks pretty formidable, but Bill beams at him.

"Hey, Keyhole!"

"Hey, Bill," he says, the scowl lifting just a bit. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Dipper," Bill says. "Dipper, this is Keyhole, a vibrant and productive member of the Zanglish diaspora."

Keyhole laughs. "Stop lying. You guys know what you want yet?"

Dipper has decided which of the sandwiches to take a chance on, and Bill does order the special. It arrives in a cut-glass bowl and sits there, greenish-black and slightly gelid. Dipper's sandwich is a bit more normal, even if the spread is made of so many different things that it's a multicolored smear of madness on the dark rye bread. At least the cold kompot Bill ordered for both of them looks good. It's a beautiful red-gold color, with whole apricots and strawberries floating in the carafe. Bill pours for Dipper and then himself, says something in Zanglish, and starts in on his soup. It really is almost a jelly, filled with chunks of barbecued eel flesh.

"...Is that an eyeball?" Dipper asks, and Bill laughs.

"Yep! They're the best part. It's why I ordered traditional style."

Dipper shudders, and takes a tentative bite of his sandwich. A cold salad that contains both caviar and candied sesame seeds does taste about as weird as he would expect, but not unpleasantly so. At least, he's pretty sure he likes it, compulsively nibbling and trying to process the riot of tastes.

"How's your first Zanglish meal?" Bill asks.

"I still don't know," Dipper admits, a full quarter of the sandwich gone already.

Bill laughs. "Galaxy Salad can be like that. I like the house blend, personally. I mean, my second mom always made it more salty than sweet, but that was just how we did things. My friends's parents all used more sesame seeds and fruit."

Dipper's inner anthropologist leaps up with its clipboard at the ready, and Dipper sternly reminds himself to speak calmly. "Oh, is your family polygamous?" It's not standard in Zangland, but Dipper has never seen it condemned in anything he has read, either.

"Yep!" Bill chirps, and pulls out his phone. "I have five parents and now you have to look at them."

Dipper laughs, and leans forward to get a better look as Bill flips through his family photos. His father is tall and gangly, and his mother is incredibly pear-shaped, which Dipper supposes explains Bill's figure, described by Mabel as 'surprisingly bootylicious.' His second mother has a pointed, elfin face, and is wearing an eye-patch with a yellow eye on it. Dipper reminds himself to look up unilateral anophthalmia in Zanglish populations the next time he's researching, and Bill switches to successive shots of his second father, and his only third-gender parent, a completely androgynous person who grins at the camera, holding a fistful of fresh radishes.

"Sie runs the garden," Bill says, with a fond look at the picture.

Dipper chuckles, reminded of his mother. "Our mom is good at that stuff. I'm not, but Mabel has some window boxes."

"I'm not surprised," Bill says, pocketing his phone again. "Your sister has the same kind of aura."

"...And what kind do I have?" Dipper asks. The word might be inextricably associated with New Age bullshit in America, but in Zanglish tradition it refers to an actual, quantifiable energy field.

"I really like yours," Bill says, and Dipper can feel himself blushing. "Ugh, you're so cute. I'm glad you're not really my apprentice."

Dipper hasn't been sure just what the hell their metaphysical relationship is, and is intrigued at this hint of it even while being called cute makes him squirm. "What if I were?"

"If you were I wouldn't be allowed to hit on you at all! This way I still can, but of course I have to say that no matter how cruelly you reject me, I'll keep helping you. Because you do need the help, and dreamwalkers need to look out for each other."

"...Uh. Thanks." Dipper almost forgets his original question, but Bill does answer it, smiling as he props his chin in his hands and studies Dipper.

"Your aura is one of those cool, metallic ones," he says. "Kinda bluish, with a buzz to it. I wanna lick it."

The words catch Dipper in the middle of a sip of water, and he almost chokes. "What does that even mean?" he gasps, managing by some kind of miracle not to spew or aspirate it.

"I guess that was a little forward! I would never lick your aura without permission, Dipper."

"Good to know," Dipper says, staring at him. Bill stares back with perfect equanimity. "What would that even entail?" Dipper asks, and Bill grins.

"It would be an astral lick. My physical tongue would go right through it."

Dipper is still completely weirded out, but he has to laugh. "Well, thank you for being a gentleman about all your licking, Bill. I think."

"You're more than welcome," he says, and gets to work on finishing his soup as though he hasn't said anything odd at all.

"So what should I do about not getting eaten by dream mites in the meantime?" Dipper asks, when both of them are sitting back from empty plates.

"You should let me cast protective magic on you, straight boy."

Dipper can't help giving Bill a long and comprehensive side-eye. "And just how gay is your magic?" he says at last.

Bill laughs. "I have to draw a symbol on your skin, but I promise not to be creepy. We can use the bathroom here."

Dipper sighs. "Grrrreeeat."


	8. Chapter 8

Fortunately for their purpose, the men's room at Grandmother's is a single, allowing Bill to lock the door behind them for near-complete privacy.

"We'll just put this on your back," Bill says. "I have to use a Sharpie, but just this once shouldn't poison you."

"Here's hoping," Dipper says, and pulls his shirt off, refusing to feel awkward. 

Well, at least refusing to be awkward about it. It's just a shirt, so what if Bill is probably checking him out? A flash of blue flame makes him jump, and Bill is grinning at him when he whirls around to look. Bill's hand and the fine-tip permanent marker in it its grasp are both glowing blue, with heatless, phantom flames.

"You didn't think I'd just use ink, did you?" he asks, his voice full of the paradoxical whispering thunder from Dipper's dreams.

"I guess not," Dipper says, swallowing and turning his back to Bill. 

He has no idea what to do with his hands, and when he puts them on the wall at shoulder height, he remembers Pacifica putting him in this position and has to conclude that this was the wrong answer. Bill doesn't seem to notice, leaning in so close that Dipper can smell him, clean musk and fabric softener and Mindscape Coffee.

"This may feel a little odd," Bill says, still in that uncanny voice, "but it shouldn't hurt at all. If it even stings a little, say so, that's very important."

"Okay," Dipper says, and grimaces because Pacifica used to give him careful instructions, too. 

He does his best not to shiver, wondering what the fuck has happened to his life. The touch of the marker nib is the same as any other, firm, fibrous, and slightly cold with the moisture of ink. Along with it there's another sensation: a strange, slick sparkle that does not hurt in the slightest. It coils over his skin, cool and electric and god, it would be better if it hurt. Dipper fights not to squirm and that effort just makes everything worse. 

If he's the one to get a boner when Bill is the one who promised not to be creepy, Dipper will never live it down. Fucking Bill is just humming to himself, like he does this kind of thing all the time, tracing that weird symbol that looks like some kind of punk rock treble clef and is found in so much Old Zanglish jewelry. It's right between Dipper's shoulder blades, which is supposed to be an innocuous place, as far above the waist as is reasonable. Dipper had forgotten how sensitive he is there, and tips his head forward, resting it against the cool, tiled wall as Bill makes the last strokes.

The weirdest thing is that that cool, buzzing feeling stays on his skin after Bill is done. He steps back, and Dipper shivers, reaching for his shirt. "I think it might be a little crooked," Bill says as Dipper pulls the shirt back on, "but it'll do."

Dipper turns to face him again. "Thanks," he says, which seems pretty lame and inadequate, but Bill just smiles at him.

"You're welcome. When should we have your first real lesson in dreamwalking?"

"I'm free most weekends and afternoons," Dipper says, feeling like things are getting more surreal by the moment.

By the time they leave the bathroom a minute or two later, they've agreed to meet again tomorrow, and Dipper is wondering what in the hell Mabel is going to say. The symbol is still buzzing on his back as they settle up and leave the restaurant, and he really wishes it would stop as he climbs onto the moped again, strapping on the enormous pink helmet. Things are more awkward than they were on the way because they're traveling downhill, and gravity is pressing him up against Bill's back, which is entirely too lithe and hard and pleasant to lean on for Dipper's comfort.

"This is your stop!" Bill yells over the engine before switching it off, and Dipper blinks, blushing to realize how spaced out he has been. 

They're back at the park, which means that he can just walk to Mabel's from here. He hops off the bike and unbuckles the helmet again, feeling like everyone can see the symbol on his back. He pictures it glowing blue through his shirt, and shivers, handing the helmet to Bill, who takes it with both hands, still beaming at him.

"Thanks for... everything," Dipper says. He has never sounded lamer in his life, but Bill just laughs.

"You're welcome." He straps the helmet to the seat behind him, and then pulls Dipper's cap out of the saddlebag. "Take care of yourself," he adds, and drives off, leaving Dipper standing on the sidewalk and feeling foolish.

All through the rest of Dipper's day, he can feel the emblem on his back, and when he takes off his shirt at home he checks in the mirror and sees that it really is glowing the faintest blue. He stares at it for a long time, wondering when his life got so fucking weird.

It's hard to sleep with all the weirdness, but Dipper has been up for a long time, and at last even the light, uncanny tingling of his back can't keep him awake. Dipper sleeps, and dreams. In the dream he's a small child, walking barefoot through a vast, dark old house. It's the kind of place that would scare a little kid, but Dipper isn't scared. It feels like home, and the lack of light doesn't bother him. There's enough to see his way, and that's what matters, because it's very important that he get to the attic. The feathercups are up there, tenderly laid away in a trunk covered with living human skin. It's just the kind of stuff that freaks Dipper out when he's awake, but now he just giggles and speeds up, because the trunk likes to be tickled, and will bounce around the floor when he does.

Dipper patters up the stairs on his little feet, and then stops dead at the top, because Bill's triangular form is floating outside the window, shining yellow and looking into the attic with its one massive eye. It widens at the sight of Dipper, and then the house is full of Bill's laughter.

"You're cute like that," he tells Dipper, shrinking down to his size and phasing through the window, sprouting arms and legs as he does. Soon he's standing in front of Dipper, hands on his lower corners. "I just came by to see if the symbol was working," he says.

"Well, is it?" Dipper asks, struggling to look back over his shoulder to see if it's still glowing.

"So far!" Bill chirps, and then looks to the trunk, where it rests under the window. "You want to get back to that?"

"Something about feathercups," Dipper says, going over to the trunk, which is as warm and soft as living flesh. He tickles one of the long sides and it giggles and starts to hop. Bill laughs, and watches as Dipper gentles it to stillness again and opens the lid, removing the feathercups, which are of course for drinking light. Bill is happy to join Dipper for a round or two, and he wakes up in the morning wishing he could remember what flavor sodium arc lights are.


	9. Chapter 9

Dipper squints at his phone, very irritated with Google Maps now that it has led him wrong three times. He wouldn't have thought that an apartment one bus transfer away from his own would be so hard to find, but he has been up blind alleys and through weird little gates looking for 3113 Aldebaran, and if he doesn't find it this time he's going home.

He emerges from yet another tiny alleyway, because Zanglanders tend to live in this most crooked and claustrophobic part of town. Dipper is very relieved to find himself in a small courtyard that looks a lot like the one Bill described yesterday, all scraggly, dry grass and one enormous, black-boled tree. Dipper studies it for a moment, unable to identify its species, and then walks up to the nearest door. It's a normal metal door, but someone has carefully drawn an enormous, staring yellow eye on it with chalk. 

Dipper opens the door and makes sure not to smudge the eye, stepping into a dim hallway and looking around for the apartment numbers. Bill lives in 7, and Dipper works his way backwards from 12, rounding the corner to reach his destination. Naturally, the correct door has an eye on it, but so do most of the others. Many of these are stickers or a quick chalk scribble, but Bill's is an elaborate, rhinestone thing in every color of the rainbow. Dipper chuckles, and knocks lightly on the door. Just when he's about to repeat it louder, the door opens and Bill beams at him, right up close and displaying every one of his strangely sharp teeth.

"Hi! You're early!"

"Sorry," Dipper says, trying not to stare. Zangland has vastly different gender norms from most of the rest of the world, but it's one thing to read about it and another to see Bill in a nearly-sheer yellow robe with black marabou trim. Mercifully there are boxers under it, the generous, baggy, comfortable kind, so Bill actually is covered in the eyes of the law, and when he steps aside, Dipper can come into the apartment without feeling too much weirder than usual.

"It's fine," Bill says, waving a careless hand and shutting the door. The living room is covered in various wild, theatrical pieces of clothing, sewing and bedazzling projects arrested at various points. "Pyronica has been refurbishing our wardrobe," Bill explains, picking his way to the kitchenette. "Get you a drink?"

"Uh, sure," Dipper says, finding an overturned milk crate to sit on.

"I get enough coffee at work," Bill says, rattling around the kitchen, "so we're having blackberryade."

"Sounds good to me," Dipper says, because it does, and sets his bag down beside the crate, stretching his shoulders and lifting his cap so that he can swipe the sweat from his brow with one forearm. It's another hot day, and at this point Dipper will drink anything if it's over ice.

"They're wonderful berries, a friend of ours lives near a good patch," Bill says, filling two tall glasses with ice. "I'll be making winter kompot out of the ones we dried."

Dipper has to smile, because that's just so _domestic_. "There are some near my grunkle's--" Dipper chuckles, interrupting himself. "When we were kids we decided 'great-uncle' was too long to say," he explains. "But anyway, he used to run this tourist trap out in Oregon, and in the summer we'd do our best to pick berries and not get flayed alive."

"I'm glad you succeeded," Bill says, approaching with two glasses of vibrant purple. He sounds completely serious, but not very worried, as if being flayed alive is just one of those terrible but implacable hazards of childhood, like dog bites and perverts.

"Thanks," Dipper says, accepting the drink with both hands. It smells like blackberry, of course, a few seeds trapped among the ice cubes.

"You're welcome," Bill chirps, and pulls up a second milk crate, this one painted in random patterns and colors with what may be nail polish, Dipper can't be sure. And then Bill gets settled on it, crossing one ankle over the other knee, and Dipper knows that it's nail polish on the crate, because the black glitter streaks match his toenails.

Dipper takes a sip of the blackberryade, which tastes fresh and cool, enough sugar added to balance the flavor without drowning out the natural tang of the fruit. "Wow, this is really good," he says, and Bill looks so absurdly pleased that Dipper is embarrassed for him. 

As he explains his theory of mixology, Dipper is reminded of the pink syrup at Mindscape and is filled with a sudden urge to ransack Bill's kitchen for clues. He takes a long pull of blackberryade and reminds himself that doing so would be neither polite nor kind. And in terms of pure self-interest, it might make Bill mad enough to throw him out for the dream mites. Probably not permanently, but it's a completely unacceptable risk.

"...Dipper?"

"Sorry, I zone out like that," he says, meeting Bill's eyes again. Well, eye, even if the green one is as convincing as ever.

Bill smiles. "That's okay." The actual table is covered in clothes, but Bill reaches one long leg out to drag a hatbox close enough to serve. He sets his glass on it and stands up, marabou fluttering. "I'm going to go put on real clothes, and then we can get started."

Dipper just nods and downs the rest of his drink. He has of course been researching oneiromancy properly since it became relevant to his life and not just a weird little fringe interest, but he's still not sure where they're going to begin. Meditation is probably the best start, even if Dipper has never been any good at it, but there are also supplements he could be taking, and rituals that _do_ involve sigils of blood and glitter.

"Okay, so!" Bill says, bounding out of his bedroom, grinning. "We're going to start with meditation!" 

He's wearing a black crop top and a neon pink kilt with cargo pockets and a glittery plastic heart charm dangling from each of its myriad zippers, and the worst part is that it really suits him. It draws attention to his slender waist, as well as the clarity of his skin and the length of his legs. Really nice legs, trim and elegant, with the kind of delicate ankle bones that always make Dipper feel like a dweeb for noticing them on girls, like it's 1840 or something. Now it's dweeby _and_ gay, and Dipper spares a resentful thought for Mabel for starting this whole gay tangent in the first place.


	10. Chapter 10

There are several different meditation scripts for oneiromancers, all of them in Old Zanglish, and Dipper is pretty sure he can manage most of them if they start slowly.

"I was thinking we would go unscripted!" Bill says. "It's easiest to do these things in your first language, you know."

"Is it?"

"Yep! Here, I'll fix us a space!" He leaps to do it, shoving boots to the side and pulling out a roll of black electrical tape, humming to himself as he makes a circle on the carpet and then adds a symbol to each of the four cardinal points. Dipper recognizes them, but can't be positive of their meaning. 

"Right!" Bill says, straightening his spine to kneel with his hands on his hips, bare feet tucked underneath him like the paws of a cat. "Now you have to ask permission to cross the circle to join me." 

Dipper hesitates, and Bill smiles. "You don't have to say anything special, it just has to be sincere and reasonably polite."

Dipper smiles back. "Okay." He stands and goes to the edge of the circle, careful not to step on any of the symbols. "May I come in?"

"You may," Bill says, and shuffles back to give Dipper more room. He nods his approval when Dipper takes care not to step on any of the tape as he enters the circle. Dipper smiles, and settles down on the floor, crossing his legs.

"Okay, now, what?"

"Now," Bill says, "you close your eyes. I'm going to touch you," he adds, and Dipper's stomach lurches with something that might be alarm before Bill continues, "just at your temples. You know, kind of like a Vulcan mind-meld."

Dipper laughs. "I guess I can handle that," he says, and closes his eyes. "Should I have my hands any kind of way?" he asks, folding them in his lap for now.

"That's fine," Bill says, and there's a small fabric sound as he shifts his weight, and then the first two fingertips of each hand are resting on his temples, cool and dry. 

"Now," Bill whispers like the sound of fire, "imagine yourself as a house. The vault of your skull forms the roof, and your eyes are shuttered windows." 

Dipper obeys, unsurprised to find himself picturing something a lot like the attic of the Mystery Shack. Bill asks him about all the details of the room, what it looks like, how it's lit, what kind of furniture there is, everything. He makes it easy to sink into the visualization, and Dipper does.

"Now," Bill says, "I need you to open the shutters without opening your eyes."

Dipper almost does anyway, but Bill places gentle thumbs on his eyelids as a reminder. Dipper keeps his eyes closed, and opens those mental shutters, wondering why Bill hasn't given him any guidance on the exterior world. And then his jaw drops, because there's already a world out there. He hasn't visualized anything, but he's seeing a vast and strange desert, full of craggy plateaus, mesas, and arches. The land is purple and the sky is green, full of enormous and bizarre birds. One of them opens its beak and lets out a call that sounds exactly like a dial-up modem.

"What the _fuck_ ," Dipper breathes, and Bill laughs. There's a weird, tickling coolness sweeping over Dipper's entire body, strange but pleasant, and he wonders if they're surrounded by those blue phantom flames again.

"Those windows are the boundary between your own head and the Dreaming," Bill says. "Let me know when you're ready to go on."

Dipper has to stare for a long time, but at last he collects himself. "Okay," he says, "now what?"

"Now, I need you to imagine something that can write on glass. Soap, paint, marker, anything that will let you draw on the windows."

Dipper imagines an actual glass marker, fat and cool in his hand, the tip a vibrant red. "Does the color matter?"

"No," Bill says, "but red is traditional."

Dipper can't help an uneasy giggle at this, but collects himself and climbs up to the windows, where Bill talks him through drawing two of the most complex protective sigils, one on each window. He has some experience with them, but they're still hard to draw properly, and the idea of screwing up makes him nervous.

"Uh," Dipper says, after the second one, "I _think_ I did this right..."

"I'll check," Bill says, and suddenly there's yellow light beaming in through the windows, throwing sigil-shadows all over the inside. Looking out again, Dipper sees that triangular form floating against the green sky.

"Hi!" Triangle Bill waves one black hand. "They look pretty good to me!"

Dipper just waves back, wondering yet again when his life got so strange. Bill floats closer, examines the sigils again, and then vanishes in a flash of blue flame.

"Okay, Dipper," Bill says, actually using his mouth and not crazy magical telepathy, "close the shutters."

Dipper does, and then imagines himself standing in the center of the room. "Now what?" he asks, and Bill chuckles.

"Now open your eyes," he says, and Dipper does. 

Bill is closer than he realized, bright black eye staring into Dipper's face. This close it's obvious that the green one is glass. He can actually see the difference between pupil and iris in the living eye, just barely delineated by a a little haze of gold flecks. Realizing so suddenly that Bill's eye is beautiful makes Dipper feel more awkward than ever, and he shifts back a bit as Bill takes his hands off of Dipper's face, still smiling at him.

"There," Bill says. "We'll need to repeat this a few times, but I can tell that it's helping the one I left on your back work already. We should check that one," Bill adds. "Just to be safe."

"Great," Dipper says, caught somewhere between sarcasm and sincerity.

There's an etiquette to leaving the circle just as there was to entering it, and Dipper bows when Bill does and repeats his thanks to the symbols for working properly. That done, they can step out, and Dipper sits on his milk crate again, pulling his shirt up around his neck, resting his elbows on his knees. Behind him, Bill is on one knee, examining his handiwork.

"You could get by with this," Bill says, "but better safe than sorry." 

He pulls out the same permanent marker he used in the bathroom at Grandmother's, and starts retracing all the little sharp bits around the edge. It's way worse this time, since Bill is so close that Dipper can feel his breath. It's taking a lot of effort not to shiver, and he reminds himself that if he does, it will mess the design up and only prolong this, and ignores the part of himself that's tempted to mess the design up on purpose.

"There!" Bill says, after an eternity. "Now, I hate to rush you out, but I'm going to be late if I don't."

"Shit, that's right," Dipper says. "Thanks for doing this before your shift, man."

"No problem," Bill says, bouncing to his feet and ducking back into his bedroom. 

Dipper does shiver, now, and takes a few deep, calming breaths as he pulls his shirt down again and Bill reappears, bare feet now shod. Once Bill is sure that they're both presentable and have all their personal effects, Dipper can finally flee into the glare of another hot summer afternoon.


	11. Chapter 11

Mabel bounces up and down on the rug as much she can without spilling her Mabeljuice, eyes shining. “Ask him out ask him out ask him out!” she chants, grinning from ear to ear.

Dipper rolls his eyes, ice and plastic dinosaurs clicking together in his cup. “I knew I shouldn't have told you about it,” he grumbles, and Mabel just giggles. “...What do you think he'd say?” Dipper mutters, almost too quietly to be heard.

“Probably something like 'at last, delectable human!'” she says, doing a remarkably good impression of Bill.

Dipper has to smile, even as he rolls his eyes again. "At least I'm admitting I'm gay for him, now, that's gotta be worth something."

"It so is, but you should go the distance!" she says, dynamic hand gestures slopping a few drops of pale green liquid over the rim of her class to trail down over her knuckles. "To the extreeeeeeme!"

Dipper passes her a paper napkin. "How much Mabeljuice have you had today?"

"Too much, but that's beside the point, Dipper!" she says, dabbing at her hand before wrapping the napkin around the stem of her glass.

"What should I even invite him to do? I hear dinner and a movie is lame."

"It is," Mabel says, "but Dipper, you have your big sister to help you."

Dipper chuckles, setting his glass aside and tipping back onto the rug, staring up at the ceiling, where Mabel's disco ball gently turns. It's a dumpster rescue, missing silver facets replaced with multicolored ones, and Dipper smiles at it. "You two probably share more interests than he and I do."

"Maybe," she says. "I think it'd be cool if a new boy like, took me to the aquarium and then came back here and let me do his makeup for going clubbing, but I understand what a sacrifice that would be for you."

Dipper shudders. Beyond the masculinity issues he pretends not to have, makeup feels smeary and weird and Candy and Grenda's ambush makeovers have given him years of aversive conditioning. "Maybe some eyeliner, if I'd look like a square without it," he says.

Mabel grins at him. "Glad to see you broadening with age, brother dear."

He smiles back, his heart gripped by a sudden pang of unbearable gratitude to Bill for keeping him safe. The thought of Mabel dealing with his unexplained brain death still hurts nearly as much as it did the very first time. "I do my best," he says, matching her teasing tone, but it doesn't matter. She catches her twin's real mood the way they both do from time to time, and reaches out to him.

"Awkward sibling-hug because I'm not sitting in the ICU waiting room trying to figure out your medically inexplicable brain death?"

"Yeah," Dipper says, rolling up onto his knees and shuffling over to her. She smells like paint and the perfume she mixes herself, and Dipper sighs, tightening his hold for a long moment. As adults they can hang on a bit longer, but they still do the pats, of course.

"Seriously," Mabel says, "I know all this heavy shit makes it weird in addition to gay, but you should go for it." She sits back and takes a long sip of her juice.

Dipper does the same, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand as he sets the glass aside. "Yeah," he says softly, "you're probably right."

The next lesson is at eight this Saturday, and Dipper isn't sure if he hopes or fears that it will be even gayer than the last one. He knocks on Bill's door, and can't help an instinctive grimace and recoil at the vision that greets him.

"Hi!" Bill chirps. "You look horrified. Oh, right, I look horrible!" He grins, apparently very pleased to have worked it out. "This stuff on my face is a skin treatment, I promise it's not contagious." The gunk on his face is a horrible, pebbly green-purple that seems like it might sprout tentacles at any moment, but it makes no hostile moves as Bill lets him in, and neither does Pyronica, who just waves at him from her spot cross-legged on the floor, doing something to a gauzy yellow tutu.

"We're going out tonight," Bill says, "but it will be a while yet."

Dipper chuckles, setting his backpack on a milk crate beside the clear half of the table. "You guys remind me of my sister and her friends."

"I ran into them at Hatbox once," Bill says. "They were particularly fabulous that night."

"I'll tell her you said that," Dipper says, and Bill laughs.

"Please do. Drink?"

"What are you having?"

"Blackberryade, and I've done no pre-gaming because I take your education seriously."

"Believe me, I appreciate both of those," Dipper says, settling onto another crate as Bill trots into the kitchen. Pyronica calls something in Zanglish that must be a request for a refill, because Bill comes out with the pitcher in one hand and Dipper's glass in the other. He pours for his guest and then for his roommate.

"Enjoy that while I scrape my face clean," he says to Dipper, and vanishes again.

"Seriously," Dipper asks Pyronica, "what is that stuff even made of?"

She laughs. "Oatmeal, beet greens, and a couple Zanglish roots. It's hideous, but the best thing for Bill's pores."

"Well, I guess you're onto something," Dipper says, since Bill's skin is generally quite clear, the kind of thing that gets compared to porcelain or alabaster.

"It's one of those recipes from grandma that actually works," she says, plucking an iridescent yellow bead from a little box beside her, adding to a row of them around the waist, others already flashing at the hem.

"It must be weird to be in a country where men in skirts are such a big deal."

Pyronica laughs. "It is! But of course, we're the only country to ever be dumped from the Soviet Union for being too weird."

"And proud of it!" Bill cries, coming to join them again. He's still wearing his sheer yellow robe over heart-patterned pajama pants, but his face is back to the odd beauty that serves it for normal.

Dipper grins. "I can see how you would be."

"It's important not to internalize anti-weird sentiment," he says. "Pyronica, would you be an absolute goddess and finish that in my room? You know how the vibrations of other people can throw things off."

"All right," she says, picking up her various small things, "but I want three drink chips for my trouble."

"Done," Bill says, and Dipper laughs, reminded of himself and Mabel. Not that Dipper is the kind of guy who collects drink chips.

"Where are you two headed after this?" he asks, as Bill tapes a fresh circle onto the carpet.

"Oh, just the Fearamid. We practically live there."

"Seriously? Mabel has been trying to get into the Fearamid for months!" It’s bizarre to be having this conversation with a man in the middle of setting up for some serious Applied Weirdness, but of course Bill rolls with it. He doesn't even look up from his arcane symbols.

"That's too bad. It gets packed on the weekends, that's the one advantage of having to go out on Mondays."

"Yeah, Mabel only puts up with not getting into places if it's a capacity issue." Mabel has Views about club access, and while Dipper is sick of hearing them, he has to agree that any place that doesn't want to let Grenda in can go to hell.

"I can get her a few VIP passes," Bill says, taping the last few lines. He straightens up, kneeling in the circle the way he did last time.

"May I join you?" Dipper asks, and Bill beams at him.

"Of course you can come to the Fearamid with us!" he chirps, and then laughs at the look on Dipper's face. "Just kidding. You are invited into my circle. And to the Fearamid, if you want."

"I think I'll be okay," Dipper says, crossing into the circle and sitting down across from Bill. "But thanks."

Bill's smile softens into something sweet. "You're welcome," he says, voice shading into the uncanny tone he uses in the Dreaming. "Now close your eyes."


	12. Chapter 12

This lesson goes a lot like the last one, with Dipper imagining himself as a house again. This time when he opens the shutters, the red symbols are still there, like he drew them onto real glass.

"Holy shit," Dipper gasps, and Bill laughs.

"May I take a look?" he asks, and Dipper nods, flinching a little at the touch of Bill's cool, dry fingertips on his temples. He relaxes again in a moment, and stares out past the symbols and into the strange, purple-tinted cloudfield beyond. Bill floats into view above the clouds in his triangle form, and lets out a delighted laugh at the sight of the windows.

"Very good!" He skims up to the one in front of Dipper, becoming so enormous that his single eye fills the pane. "Very good, I knew you were clever as well as delectable. The first time I saw you, I said to myself: that boy's sharp."

"Uh, thanks. I guess."

"You're very welcome! May I come in?"

The question gives Dipper pause, but Bill did join his dream without causing any mischief, and has been nothing but helpful. Really disconcerting sometimes, but helpful.

"Uh, sure," Dipper says, and Bill shrinks down and phases through the glass to stand on the window seat beside Dipper. He's very small, and his stubby little legs are ridiculous, looking like ink marks on reality. Dipper can't help laughing, but Bill doesn't seem offended. "Bill," Dipper says, "I have to ask: why are you a triangle?"

"There are many reasons," Bill says, skinny black arms emerging from his body as his bow tie and a stovepipe hat appear out of nothing. The second these are in place, he snaps his fingers, producing a cane to lean on as he studies Dipper. "Dreamwalkers can't always look like their physical selves. In certain parts of the Dreaming, a perfect map of one's meatsack can be too much to carry."

"And it just gets to be a habit?" Dipper asks, studying Bill's strange, two-dimensional form.

"Pretty much!" He hops off of the window seat, but doesn't reach the floor. Instead he stops in mid-air, and then gently turns upside-down, his hat defying gravity along with the rest of him. "I like your brain-house, Dipper. It's neat."

"...Thanks." He watches as Bill gently bobs, as if he's floating in the sea. "D'you think I could do that?"

"Probably! Just concentrate on floating, you can work on rotation later."

"This is so weird," Dipper mutters, and thinks very hard about floating. It's much deeper than just visualizing himself doing it. Somehow, his head has become a place where things really happen. It takes a lot of concentration, but it's like learning to hand-whistle had been, inevitable in retrospect. He's suddenly a few inches above the window seat. He crosses his legs and drifts off of it to join Bill, who's still upside-down.

"There you go!" he chirps, literally beaming up at Dipper, his entire body glowing. 

Dipper smiles at him. "This is so cool."

"I know, right?" He floats closer, and starts to slowly orbit Dipper. "Your form is good. And I don't mean the memory of your meatsack, though that is _very_ good."

"...The memory or the meatsack?" Dipper asks, craning his neck to keep Bill in sight and failing as he loops around to be in front of him again.

"I meant the memory, but definitely both," Bill says.

"I've been told I'm a four out of ten on a good day," Dipper says, and Bill is suddenly right-side up and huge again, his eye glowing red, the edges of the triangle limned in fire.

"WHAT?!" he bellows, and Dipper yelps, snatching Bill's physical hands off of his head and opening his eyes. The room is just like they left it, and Bill is sitting right where was he was, looking very human, very embarrassed, and still more than a little peeved. "I'm sorry, Dipper," he says, "but you have a remarkably beautiful meatsack, and I will have no aspersions cast upon it."

Dipper can't help laughing, even if it is a little shaky. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Bill says with a sniff, arms crossed over his chest. "I despise number systems, but you're a six on an extremely bad day. Maybe. And I'm sorry I scared you," he mutters.

"Well, now that I know you do that, it won't be such a shock. You got any other weird forms I should know about?"

"Plenty!" Bill says, looking way too happy about it. "Wanna see 'em?"

"...Uh... can they not be in my brain-house?"

"Sure! I have pictures!"

For a moment of intense vertigo, Dipper thinks he's talking about photographs on the physical plane, but he isn't. After they politely leave the circle, Bill darts off to what must be his bedroom and comes back with a thick, leather-bound book. It has a folksy, handmade look.

"Pull up a milk crate and I'll show you the pictures," Bill says, and Dipper obeys, scooting close enough to get a good view of the page and to smell an unidentifiable perfume. "You've seen this one," Bill says, turning the blank front page to reveal a watercolor of his small, hat-wearing yellow form. "My naffer did most of these," he says, using one of a vast reservoir of affectionate Zanglish terms for a third-gender parent. "Sie's the real artist of the family."

"Are there really a whole book's worth?" Dipper asks, a little dazed at the thought.

Bill laughs. "No, not quite. I take notes in the back." He turns the page to show the blank triangle, his most abstract form, and then the fiery one with the red eye. "That happens when my temper flares up, and I really am sorry I scared you."

"It wasn't _that_ bad, Bill," Dipper says, trying not to roll his eyes. "It was just a bit much to have in my own head. If I see you like that in the Dreaming it won't be such a big deal." He really hopes this is true, anyway, since otherwise he would never live it down.

"Okay!" Bill chirps, beaming and turning the page to reveal a pyramidal form with an eye on each of its faces. "This one is a lot of fun, I just spin and spin and spin." There are other pyramid forms on the pages thereafter, some in three horizontal sections, each with its own spin, some that are red or black, and one terrifying red one that's covered in flames, sprouting gold limbs and black tongues.

"Jesus," Dipper mutters, and Bill laughs.

"I save that one for special occasions!" He shuts the book with a soft clap of the pages, and calls, "Pyronica, what time is it?"

"Time for you to come get this tutu on, road brother!"

"Just let me get Dipper his copies!" Before Dipper can even ask what he's talking about, he's bounding into his bedroom again to emerge a few seconds later with a handful of what look like worksheets. "There's a Zanglish meditation script in here that you should know, and some of the most important symbols. Study it, drink it, breathe it in and bathe in it," he says, herding Dipper to the door.

"I'll study it, anyway," he says, and Bill just shrugs, beaming at him.

"Good enough for a start! And now, farewell, delectable human, until we meet again." He blows Dipper a kiss and shuts the door, leaving him standing in the dingy hallway and wondering if this entire thing has been one long, strange dream.


	13. Chapter 13

Hardly anybody loves presents more than Mabel. Dipper knows his twin almost as well as he knows himself, and comes prepared when he brings her the Fearamid tickets. She thinks he's inserting earplugs for comedy value before he hands the passes over, but her delighted shriek at the sight of them makes him very glad that he did. Mabel sets her gift down so it won't be crushed along with Dipper in her grateful hug, and then whips out her phone to take a picture of it for Grenda and Candy. 

Both of them text her back immediately, of course, and Dipper just sets himself up in a quiet corner with some reading for class as the discussion clicks on and then moves into speech as Mabel calls her friends to gush and make nefarious plans for the coming weekend. By this point in his life, Mabel's scheming is a comforting background noise for his studies, and it takes Dipper a second to realize when Mabel is speaking to him again. She's calmer now, squealing out of her system.

"Okay, Dipper," she says, still gazing lovingly down at the four(? Dipper could sworn there were only three) silver, eye-embossed tickets, "where did you get these?"

Dipper closes his massive book on its attached ribbon bookmark. "Bill got them for you. A while ago he told me he could hook you up. And I didn't want you disappointed if he turned out not to be able to, so surprise! Happy Tuesday."

"Nothing could make me try to poach a possible boyfriend from my brother," Mabel says in a tone of quiet awe, "but these are a definite inducement."

"I wonder if you could steal him," Dipper says, tipping back against his stack of cushions to ponder it. "All I know about his orientation is that he thinks I'm pretty."

"Well, you kind of are," Mabel says. "A little bit. I mean, we look alike, and I'm pretty."

"You're also not as hairy as me."

"Look at the bright side, you don't have shoulder hair," Mabel chirps, and Dipper laughs.

"I guess I should be thankful for small favors."

"You should. And you are so coming to the Fearamid with us this weekend."

"What?!"

"Dipper, don't be dumb! A person's favorite nightspot can tell you a lot about them, and _he gave you a ticket._ "

The real logic in Mabel's argument hits Dipper right where he's vulnerable, that compulsion to investigate that always leads him into ridiculous situations. He barely puts up a fight at all, and on Friday night he's sitting in the same corner and actually letting Grenda do his makeup. Not a lot of it, just black eyeliner. A lot of black eyeliner, but nothing like the elaborate designs the girls have put on themselves. They're mostly dressed now, but Mabel and Candy are digging through her closet and flinging garments into piles that seem random to Dipper but are probably part of some complex system. Most of them are black, and some appear to be real leather.

"I want to be able to look myself in the eye, guys!" he calls over Mabel's pre-game music as Grenda puts the eyeliner away.

"I still say he needs lip gloss!" Grenda counters.

"I think you do too, Dipper," Mabel says, pausing with a fishnet shirt in her hands. "Just gloss, nothing too bright."

"Fine, but I'm too hairy for fishnet!"

"Shut up," Grenda says, and Dipper shuts up, letting her paint his lips with something pink and glittery as Mabel considers the shirt.

"I think you could rock it, but okay," she says, and passes the shirt to Candy, who considers it for a moment and then hangs it back up. "You should totally wear the leather pants that are too big for me. Slack fit, not queeny at all."

"And black!" Candy adds, pulling them out of one of the piles. "Goes with everything!" 

She flings the pants to Dipper, barely missing Grenda. He catches them in both hands, a little surprised at how heavy they are, and takes them into the bathroom. Mabel's bathroom is of course full of weird fluffy things and makeup and what seems like eight kinds of bodywash and a bunch of scattered clothes, but there's space to stand on the bathmat. 

Right in front of the mirror, Dipper can't help but examine his makeup. It could be worse, anyway. His eyes are just ringed in thick black that makes them look kind of big and bright, and the lip gloss really is subtle. He shakes his head and chuckles at the entire situation, and then exchanges the leather pants for the jeans he's wearing. They sit on his hips like they were made for him, and Mabel applauds when he comes back out.

"You're keeping those, Dipper. They love you and want to go home with you."

That vote is unanimous, but there's some contention over what to do about his shirt and replacing his baseball cap. In the end it's Candy who solves the latter, applying stick-on gems to the spots of Dipper's birthmark.

"There," she says with a grand gesture. "Like real stars."

They are very bright stick-on gems, so reflective that they almost glow. Each one is a different color of the visible spectrum, and Dipper can't decide if he likes it or not. Grenda puts some kind of glop in his hair, but that's not so bad. She just lets it be the shape it wants to be anyway, and doesn't put too much on. While she does that, Mabel helps Candy put her hair up, and then gets back to work on finding something to replace Dipper's poor blameless Voltron t-shirt.

"Okay, Dipper," she says when Grenda lets him go at last, "if you're too hairy for mesh, I've got a sleeveless turtleneck with a bunch of zippers, or this thing with the feathers."

Dipper feels ridiculous in this bondage-inspired, zipper-bedecked thing, but there's no way in hell he's going to wear feathers. When he says so, Mabel just rolls her eyes and adjusts her boa. "Whatever, Dipper. You look as fabulous as you'll let us make you, so we might as well get going."

"Not quite!" Candy chirps, and puts some glittery rainbow bracelets on Dipper's left wrist.

"What is this, The Gayening?" he asks, and she snorts.

"They match your crystals, so there."

"Ladies, we are burning moonlight!" Grenda thunders, and soon all of them are headed downstairs to catch the first cab they see.


	14. Chapter 14

Dipper has seen the Fearamid from the outside exactly once before, and it was daytime and he wasn't paying much attention. Now he is, and is unsurprised by the amount of neon eyes. There's also a conventional open sign just to let the masses know, as if the line of people trying to get in wasn't a clue. Walking past the line, Dipper feels conspicuous as hell, but he's also filled with relief about his outfit. He is so far from being the strangest-looking person here that it isn't even funny. The doorperson is a completely androgynous being swathed in purple, and flashes them a sunny smile when they display their VIP passes.

"Bill said you'd probably turn up soon," they say to Mabel, and she beams. "I love your gems," they add, speaking to Dipper as he goes past into the side entrance reserved for those with passes.

"Thanks," Dipper says, and follows Mabel into the club.

The interior of the Fearamid is actually pyramid-shaped, with eyes on the triangular walls and beaded curtains separating a few semi-private rooms. The lighting makes Dipper feel like he's having an acid flashback even though he doesn't do drugs, and the crowd in here is dressed even more flamboyantly than the one outside. Within about ten seconds, Dipper stops feeling like his own outfit is ridiculous at all. There's a girl dressed as a fish dancing with a burly man in pink ballerina drag, and there's a group playing a game that's presumably called 'spin the person.' Dipper isn't quite sure of the rules, but it seems to be very energetic and loud.

Over the years, the girls have formed an excellent clubbing team, and now Grenda performs one of her designated roles, which is to push through the crowd like an icebreaker, smaller companions riding her wake. Soon they reach the bar, where Candy buys the first round, still flush with birthday money. She gets a lot of lucky money from her dad's mainlander relatives, and is always willing to share with the less fortunate.

Dipper goes out just enough to have a standard drink order. When he asks for a Jack and Pitt, his companions just shake their heads at his failure to take advantage of a bar that stocks everything from bubblegum liqueur to Everclear to absinthe, but leave him to it. They of course all get complicated girly drinks that look like they came from Mindscape Coffee.

Drinks in hand, they make their exploratory round of the Fearamid. The rooms are strangely shaped, in keeping with the overall pyramid form, and the activities going on inside each one are even stranger. In one of the bigger rooms over the main dance floor, there's a competition going on between two groups of wildly-dressed androgynes, to see which side can best contort and stack their bodies into the form of a throne. On the main floor, the music was strange, but up here it's so weird it makes Dipper feel a little off, physically, like there's infrasound in it or something. He downs the last watery half of his drink and looks around for someone to hand the glass off to as Mabel joins the throne with fewer people in it and Grenda and Candy move to give the other group technical advice.

The staff of the Fearamid identify themselves in the bizarre riot of shapes, colors, and glowsticks by wearing STAFF vests over their own elaborate ensembles, and Dipper catches sight of one of them through the beaded curtain, and ducks out to the balcony that allows access around this level to set the glass on her tray.

She grins up at him, a tiny creature in an enormous red hat that's covered with googly eyes. "Refill?" she chirps, and what the hell, it's not as if they didn't come in a cab. Dipper agrees, and she picks up a few more glasses and weaves her way down the stairs to the main level. Committed to staying in the area until his second drink arrives, he looks around for somewhere comfortable. At least out here the weird harmonics aren't making him loopy. He wanders over to the railing and props his elbows on it, watching the main dance floor. He's not surprised to see a lot of really strange moves, and in every configuration from solo to holding hands in a circle like some kind of folk dance.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Bill's voice says, almost in his ear, and Dipper does his best not to jump over the railing in surprise. 

He whips around and there's Bill, beaming down at him. Bill's left eye is purple tonight, and actually glowing with what must be tiny LEDs. It matches the glow bracelets wrapped around his head to make a crown, and it really does take Dipper a moment to realize that he's practically naked. Well, all right, it just seems that way. He's wearing his girly little black boots, gloves to match, a miniskirt that's more like a belt with ambition, and a belly shirt made out of the kind of mesh that Dipper is too hairy for. His legs really do go on forever, lean and toned, pale skin glowing in the low light. 

"Uhh... hi," Dipper says, wondering when his mouth got so dry and how long it's going to take for the waitress to get back.

"You look _lovely_ ," Bill purrs, and Dipper can feel himself blushing as Bill brushes his hair out of the way to get a better look at the gems.

"Those were Candy's idea," Dipper says, pleased that his voice still sounds normal.

"A very good idea," Bill says, looking Dipper up and down. "Where's your sister? You're too metaphysically delicate to want to come here alone."

Dipper chuckles, even if 'delicate' rankles a little. "She and her friends joined the human throne competition."

"Those are always fun," Bill says, "except when someone misses their grip and you get a high heel stuck in your eye socket." He moves to lean on the railing next to Dipper, their shoulders touching.

"Either way, the music was kind of getting to me. Infrasound or something."

"It takes some people like that," Bill says. "One guy got so dizzy he fell over and we had to carry him out, but he was too macho to admit it was getting to him. I know you have better sense."

"What about you? Where's your road-sister?"

He laughs, and points out a blaze of pink down on the dance floor. "That's her," he says, and points to a different spot. "The big guy in the party hat is Xanthar, and the person in the tiled dress is my buddy Amorphous Shape."

"Amorphous Shape?" Dipper asks, watching as Xanthar twirls his petite partner, making the strips of plastic tiles that make up the skirt flare to reveal little black shorts.

"Sie just translated hir Zanglish name. You can do that, use your name as-is like Xanthar and Pyronica do, or pick a foreign name. Unless you have one already, like me. They got popular for a while in the '90s." He pauses. "I don't know your real name, do I?"

Dipper chuckles. "You thought 'Dipper' was on my birth certificate?" he asks, looking over at Bill again, whose smile is as bright as his LED eye.

"It could easily be, in Zangland," Bill points out, leather clad finger tracing abstract patterns on the rail.

Dipper watches it move, caught again by its elegance until he remembers that he should probably speak. "It's Mason," he says. "I'm not that fond of it."

"I don't see why not," Bill says, studying his face.

Dipper grimaces. "Aw, it's a gimmicky twin name with Mabel."

"But it suits you," Bill says. "It's solid and manly, but in a quiet way." He gives Dipper one of those looks again, like he actually is particularly masculine, and Dipper just shakes his head.

"You're totally deranged, Bill," Dipper says, and turns in relief when the waitress returns, glad to have the minutiae of thanks and payment to change the subject.


	15. Chapter 15

After Dipper has bought his Jack and Pitt and Bill has traded a drink chip for something called a Glittercrash, Bill asks that question that Dipper dreads so much at times like this: "Want to dance after we finish these?"

Dipper sighs. "Bill, let me emphasize how much I cannot dance so that you don't think I'm fishing for compliments." He sets his drink down, and locks eyes with Bill. "I cannot even do the merengue."

Bill stares at him for a long moment, and then laughs. "Wow, that is terrible! Don't worry, I won't force you to exhibit your shame." He gives Dipper a reassuring pat on the shoulder and picks up his Glittercrash again. "You can watch me, instead," he says, and drains half of his drink.

"I'll take notes," Dipper says. "Try to educate myself."

"Just remember," Bill says, "I am the abyss and I gaze also." He knocks back the other half of his drink, and leads the way down the stairs, high heels making his hips sway. 

Dipper blinks, wondering what that's even supposed to mean in this context, and follows him. Bill finds a passing tray and sets his empty glass on it, the sway of his hips picking up as they near the bottom, matching the beat of Zanglish techno. He struts onto the dance floor and Dipper finds a good vantage point, settling at one of the high tables, able to watch Bill over the heads of the crowd. Bill moves with a liquid, uncanny grace, combining universal ass-shaking with strange Zanglish arm movements that look like Vogueing in the Twilight Zone.

Dipper spends about a minute trying to pretend that he isn't goddamn hypnotized, and then gives in completely, staring like an idiot. There's no way he can take his eyes off of Bill, and he needs to just own that and deal with it. He needs to do the same thing with his urge to put his mouth all over those long, long legs. He settles for chugging the rest of his drink. 

He moves to roll the cool glass over his forehead, and then remembers his stick-on gems and sets it down. With this many people in the Fearamid and his forehead covered in gems, if he wants to cool off, he'll have to open the various pointless zippers on this damn shirt. The one across his chest lets out a lot of heat, even if it is gaping to show a wide swath of his werewolf-grade chest hair. There's another over his shoulder, and another across his belly. Once they're all open he feels a little better, even if Bill is still tearing it up out there.

Bill must be in good condition, because he can dance for a long time. Dipper doesn't get the slightest bit bored, and is just finishing his third drink when Bill comes back to him, breathless and grinning. "Looking like a more delectable human than ever, I see," he says, sliding onto the seat beside Dipper. Dipper cocks his head, confused, and Bill laughs, gently touching the hair exposed by the uppermost open zipper.

"Wait, seriously?" Dipper asks. He's not sure if he's glad or frustrated that Bill's touch is so brief, almost professional.

Bill sighs sorrowfully, and waves a waitress over to get their next round with drink chips and a generous tip. Dipper thanks him, and Bill smiles. "You're welcome. And it saddens me that you don't appreciate your virile and manly chestfur, Dipper."

"Oh my fucking god," Dipper says, trying not to laugh. "Bill, what is it with you? I'm not that good-looking."

"Sweet little Princess of Skulls!" Bill cries, and the analytical side of Dipper's mind sets that down in a little internal anthropology notebook. Zangland has many gods, and people tend to pick particular favorites. "I know that beauty standards can be a lot to deal with, but Dipper, you wound me!" He reaches across the table and takes Dipper's hand, looking at him intently with his one dark eye, the other doing fascinating things to the shadows on his face. "Dipper, you have fine bones and you move with the tense lightness of some gracile predator. Your eyes are the exact color of a forest mere in the last gasp of autumn's sunlit richness, and your mouth is like the beautiful and poisonous bloom of the widowmaker rush. Especially in that gloss. Was that Candy's idea too?"

"...Uh..." is all Dipper has to offer for a moment. "Yeah," he says, still staring at Bill, "it was." The widowmaker rush grows on the edges of certain Zanglish rivers, and the ingestion of a single flower can kill a strong adult in five minutes. Dipper wonders if the morbid comparison is some poetic Zanglish formula, or just Bill being himself.

Bill grins in that wide and unnerving way of his. "It was pure genius, and you can tell her I said so."

"I will," Dipper says, taking a sip of his drink as the skin-peeling awkwardness of so many compliments starts to set in. He can feel himself blushing and hopes that Bill doesn't notice. Of course, Bill notices. 

He shakes his head with a sad smile. "American men and their resistance to their own beauty. It's a culture-wide tragedy. Oh, well. As we say in Zangland, nobody ever knows how nice their skin is until you take it off and hang it on the wall."

Dipper almost chokes. "What?!"

Bill laughs. "It's from a folktale, don't worry."

He hops off his chair and leads Dipper to one of the smaller, quieter rooms, where they can sit in an actual ball pit as he tells Dipper the whole story over another round, drinks in plastic cups resting on a convenient shelf. The tale involves set of nine royal children with three of each gender, and painless skin removal of the kind featured in the Just So stories. Dipper is relieved to find that it has a happy ending. Bill smiles at him, lounging back near the shelf and taking another sip of his Glittercrash.

"What's in that, anyway?" Dipper asks, and Bill smiles.

"Goldschlager, Silverflash, (which is like Zanglish Goldschlager), a little soda water, and a splash of cream."

"Wow." Dipper moves to lounge beside him, and picks up his own drink. "Mabel was so annoyed when I didn't order anything crazy, but I like to keep it simple in a new bar." He's beyond buzzed now, sipping slowly so that he can hang out in this warm, relaxed zone. Right after this comes the stage where he starts singing Babba songs, but he has a feeling that Bill wouldn't judge him for that, anyway. Not like he'd have room to judge, weirdo that he is. 

Dipper snickers, and Bill raises an eyebrow at him. "Yes?"

"Just thinking that you're really weird," Dipper says. "But mostly in a good way."

"Thanks," Bill says, without a trace of sarcasm.

The beads clatter a little as someone comes in, and Dipper looks up toward the door. "Dipper, are you in here?" Mabel calls, and Dipper waves his rainbow bracelets at her. A moment later Mabel and her friends are taking off their shoes to join them. "Food after this," Mabel informs him. "I hear the kitchen doesn't close until half an hour before the bar does."

"Nibbles are very important to Zanglish drinking," Bill says, and Candy laughs. Bill grins, and shifts a bit closer to her so that he can best express his appreciation of her fine work on Dipper this evening.


	16. Chapter 16

Just as Dipper could have predicated, Zanglish bar food is really, really weird. There are whole tiny salted eels, Galaxy Salad, two kinds of deep-fried pastry with savory filling, and beet fries. They also have normal fries because some things are universal, but the standard condiment is Thousand Island dressing, with cranberry ketchup available upon request. Mabel naturally wants to try everything, and soon they're seated around two of the little round tables, poking at their odd food items.

Mabel timidly nibbles on the tail of one baby eel and pronounces it good, but Candy finishes most of the plate on her own with a little help from Bill, both of them fearlessly crunching up heads and fins. Dipper shudders, and turns his attention to the Galaxy Salad. It looks a lot like what Dipper got when Bill took him for Zanglish food, but this version is sweeter, with more dried fruit and candied sesame seeds. Mabel eats a full quarter of the stuff trying to decide if she likes it or not, and then leaves the rest to Grenda and Dipper, moving on to the pastries, taking a small bite of one and grimacing, before finding one of the other flavor and eating the entire thing with beet fries.

Dipper ends up nibbling on Mabel's rejected pastry, which tastes like sweetened fish and pickled cabbage. The worst part is that it's actually pretty good, and Bill laughs when he says so.

"The secret is to pickle the cabbage in something much sweeter than the Russians use. You don't actually add any sugar to the fish, it all comes from the brine." He dips a beet fry in cranberry ketchup, swirling it lazily. "We have a lot of filling recipes, and the Fearamid actually doesn't make my favorite."

He goes on to describe it in detail while the others make the rest of the food disappear. Once everyone has eaten, Bill leads them to a back room where Pyronica and several of his other friends have repaired to do drugs. It's not a bad atmosphere, at least. No needles or anything, and everyone is happy without being grabby and creepy. They're chewing on little pink spheres like nothing Dipper has ever seen in this kind of context, and just give a collective dreamy smile when Bill comes in. 

"Hello, darlings!" he trills, and Pyronica shifts to the end of the couch she's sharing with a brown-skinned boy who's gnawing on a red pacifier that matches his eyes, gesturing for him to do the same, making enough room for Mabel and Candy to sit down. He has a gold cross smeared onto his forehead and is wearing a set of huge, black horns. It goes to show how acclimated Dipper is getting that this getup doesn't even seem particularly weird. Xanthar is still wearing his party hat, Amorphous Shape sitting on his lap and sipping hir drink, one delicate pinkie extended. Beside them is Keyhole, and Dipper waves to him as Grenda claims one of three beanbag chairs.

"Hey," Dipper says, and Keyhole's smile widens, looking so weird on his scowl-carved face.

"Hi," he says in his hoarse voice. "You want some riverwine?"

"Is that what this is?" Mabel asks, examining the saucer of tiny pink spheres on the batik-covered coffee table. They almost look like berries, except that they're too perfectly round, and almost Pepto pink.

"It is," Amorphous Shape says. Hir voice is cool and completely androgynous, resting between alto and tenor. "The experience is generally like very good sativa cannabis, only more visual. Some people are allergic, though, so rub one on your forearm before you eat it."

"Thanks for the tip!" Mabel says, plucking up one sphere and rubbing it along the inside of her forearm. It looks like some kind of pressed powder, but it leaves no visible residue on Mabel's skin. "I'm Mabel," she adds, "and that's Candy and that's Grenda."

"Amorphous Shape," Amorphous Shape says, raising hir glass in a little toast, "delighted to meet you. This is my boyfriend Xanthar," sie adds, wrapping an affectionate arm around Xanthar's neck. He just nods his massive head, dark purple hair hanging in his eyes. His expression is very solemn, and looks strange with his party hat.

"Amorphous shape is such a cool name!" Mabel says, popping the little pink ball into her mouth. "Don't be pissed," she says, shifting it into her cheek, "but are you a boy or a girl?"

Dipper groans quietly and facepalms as Bill laughs and Amorphous Shape smiles.

"I use sie and hir," Amorphous Shape says. "I'm what's called intersex in English, I think."

"Oh, cool," Mabel says. "Wow, riverwine tastes weird. Is it legal?"

"For now," Bill says, taking one and putting it under his tongue. "So far the FDA hasn't gotten wise, but it's only a matter of time until someone does something stupid."

"Should I take two?" Grenda asks, and Bill nods.

"Xanthar needs three, so probably, yeah." Bill takes the dish and passes it to Grenda. "Remember to test!" 

She nods, and takes three, holding them in her right hand as she rubs one on her left forearm.

"Hey, Grenda," Dipper asks, "can I use one to test? My arm is clean."

"I probably have all your germs anyway," Grenda says, and hands him one before passing the dish back to Bill.

"Not taking it yourself?" Bill asks, and Dipper shrugs.

"I'm a little drunk, and I like to try things under really controlled conditions." He rubs the strange, sleek ball on his forearm, fascinated by the texture. "And I like to know when things are poisonous."

"And you wonder why I like you," Bill says fondly. Dipper side-eyes him and then looks down at his forearm in surprise. There's a weird streak of tingling numbness there.

"Well. Looks like it's poisonous," he says, and hands it to Grenda. "I'm not gonna get hives or anything, am I?"

"You shouldn't," Bill says. "If you do, we're taking you to the ER, so let us know."

"You are about as reassuring as Ed Gein on amphetamines, you know that, Bill?"

Mabel cackles. "Sorry, Dipper," she says, when he glares at her, "but that was pretty funny."

"Dipper, love," Amorphous Shape says, "if the chances of a serious reaction weren't infinitesimal, we wouldn't be so casual about it."

Riverwine kicks in pretty quickly. By the time Dipper gets back from washing the numbing residue off of his arm, Candy is debating the nature of reality with Pyronica, while Grenda gazes raptly at Amorphous Shape's skirt and Mabel sits on the floor, watching her hands move. 

Dipper sighs. "Man, maybe I should've had another drink."

Bill beams at him, reaching out with one arm. Dipper takes him up on the wordless invitation, and settles onto the couch beside him, Bill's arm wrapped around his shoulders. It reminds him of being pressed up against Bill on that goddamn moped, awkward and more than a little pleasant.

"Last call is in a few minutes," Bill says, "but I can hook you up at the after party, if you want."


	17. Chapter 17

The after party turns out to be in the penthouse up at the very tip of the Fearamid, reached through the storage space, which is where the place makes up the difference between the pyramidal interior and the conventional outside. The storage space is dim and crammed with all kinds of things, almost like the green room of a theatre, and Bill leads them along a narrow, crooked path with masks and mirrors and bizarre garlands at every turn.

The tilted door gives a sense of falling into the room, and Dipper stumbles a few steps before he can stop and look around. After all the glowsticks and LEDs in the main club, it's strange to see a room bathed in firelight. There's a grandfather clock next to the fireplace, and its face has some kind of heatless glow, but it's the same amber-red color. It has horns, jagged teeth, and a pendulum tongue, of course. 

The furniture is upholstered in leather that matches various human skin tones so well that it's beyond creepy, and the decorative glass eyes do not help one bit. The rug also has an eye design, and over the ornate mantlepiece is a huge portrait that looks a little like Bill. The subject is a brown-skinned androgyne, but sie has the same geometrically sharp cheekbones and chin, and hir one visible/present eye gleams black, the other covered with a white patch that's decorated with a gold eye. Sie holds a replica of the world in one hand, some kind of staff or scepter in the other. Dipper squints owlishly at the picture as everyone else sprawls out on the floor, completely fucked up on riverwine.

The only homelike item in the whole place is a nice, normal grand piano. Not that a grand piano is really normal in any home but the kind of icy deserts of respectability inhabited by creatures like Pacifica's parents, but it at least doesn't have horns or anything. The bench has that creepy human skin look, but the piano itself is like any other. After Bill skips over to the little bar tucked into one corner of the square room and pours Dipper another Jack and Pitt, he sits down at the piano and starts plinking out something very strange but not quite atonal. It's kind of soothing, actually, and Dipper drifts over to sit beside him. There's more than enough room, and this way he can watch Bill's elegant, spidery hands. 

His nails are vivid, glittering purple tonight, presumably to match his eye. There's something really... obvious about the texture. They look as slick as glass, and for the second time tonight Dipper is imagining his mouth on Bill's skin, feeling the phantom textures sliding along his tongue and wondering when he became such a pervert. A moment later, he wonders if anyone else has become a pervert lately and glances around the top of the piano to check on Mabel. Riverwine seems like a nice high. Everyone is in a friendly pile, but nobody is getting handsy and Mabel is animatedly telling Pyronica all about something.

"Whose portrait is that?" Dipper asks, because this is going to get weird if he doesn't say _something_.

"That's my... seven greats, I want to say, granddam," Bill says, elegant fingers still caressing the keys. "Granddam instead of grandmother because sie carried a few pregnancies, but didn't feel like a woman," he adds, still playing that odd, tinkly music, like a rundown carnival ride only not nearly as creepy as that implies. "Sie was a holyperson, one of several in the family. You can look hir up: Ozgan of Qua."

Dipper makes the best mental note that he can, halfway through his fourth drink. "Sie's pretty," he hears himself say, and downs the rest of his drink to keep his mouth from doing anything else without notice.

"I'll take that as a compliment, since everyone says we look alike," Bill says, beaming.

"Dipperrrr," Mabel shouts from the floor, "kiss his pretty faaaace!"

"Oh my god shut the fuck up, Mabel!" Dipper groans, his free hand flying to cover his face. He guesses he's not too drunk if he didn't clock himself with the empty glass, and the thought is a comfort to him.

"Be nice," Candy tells Mabel, weakly batting at her.

"Thank you, Candy," Dipper mumbles, and gets up from the piano bench before realizing that he has nowhere to go. 

He settles for going over to the bar to rinse his glass. Mercifully, Mabel doesn't pursue her point. It might be the drugs, but Xanthar asks her something about her latest project and she's off. When Dipper is reasonably sure that he's safe, he comes to sit beside Bill again, and stays there, listening to the music and to the idle conversation of the group on the floor. It was late when they came up here in the first place, so before much longer Bill is calling cabs, and enlisting Dipper to help him herd everyone out through the storage rooms and down to the main floor again, where Bill lets them out onto the sidewalk and locks up behind them. 

Whatever Bill's relationship with the Fearamid's management, they trust him with a key, and Dipper boozily ponders that as the others make their way to the covered bus stop because it has a bench to sit on and it feels like rain. Dipper and Bill follow them, to make sure that any and all dropped personal effects are immediately retrieved. It isn't raining yet, and Dipper is glad to stand outside the little enclosure with Bill, breathing in the smell of approaching weather. He turns his head to study Bill in the illumination of the streetlight, and Bill looks back and smiles, so beautiful that Dipper can't stand it.

Dipper hears himself mumbling, "Fuck it, I _should_ kiss your pretty face," and he rolls along the bus stop wall until he's close enough. 

Bill ducks his head to cover the tiny distance between them, and then Dipper is kissing him, a little sloppy with liquor but deeply sincere. He lands on the corner of Bill's mouth at first, but Bill cups Dipper's face in his hands and tilts him just a little to line things up properly. Dipper does his best not to whimper or melt into a puddle on the sidewalk at the assured way that Bill moves him. He can't help melting against Bill, and he can't help the small noise he makes, a kind of really quiet moan that stays trapped in his throat, but otherwise he remains upright and mostly in control of himself.

Bill pulls away, and Dipper is about to make some kind of really embarrassing noise of complaint when he catches sight of the approaching cabs, and takes a step back of his own. Bill smiles down at him.

"Call me when you're sober, okay?" he says, and Dipper nods as the others come shuffling out, looking like a flock of exotic birds picking their way out of a broken enclosure. 

Mabel takes Dipper's arm, Candy on the other side. Grenda is simply too massive to get as wasted without serious investment, so she helps Dipper and Bill to herd all the various tripping drunks into their different cabs. Even though Dipper is one of the more sober people present, Bill hands him into the cab like it's 1895 and Dipper is a lady. It's weird, but kind of nice, especially because the girls are feeling too trippy to tease.


	18. Chapter 18

Dipper wakes up on Mabel's couch, wincing in the light of dawn and scratching at his itchy forehead. A few gems flake off, and he begins to remember why he's here and being pinched all over by zippers instead of in his own room in the embrace of a pair of particularly comfortable boxers. He curses and sits up, peeling off the rest of the gems and then hissing and wincing his way through taking off this ridiculous shirt, his body hair caught in the zippers. The task occupies his mind enough that he's standing in front of the bathroom mirror before he fully realizes that yes, he did kiss Bill last night. On the mouth, and only without tongue for lack of time.

"Holy shit," Dipper whispers to his reflection, leaning on the sink. He's in full wino trim, and with his smeared eyeliner he looks like a complete degenerate. He has a nice, quiet internal freakout for a few minutes, and then starts picking off the rest of the gems, careful to get them into the trashcan and not down the sink.

"Dipperrrrrr!" Mabel calls from the room beyond, "we're having loaded cereal, should I cut any strawberries for you?"

"Yeah!" Dipper yells back, and opens the cabinet, pleased to see a bottle clearly labeled 'Eye Makeup Remover,' complete with directions on the side. By the time he has washed his face, gotten rid of all the eyeliner, and found yesterday's shirt, the girls are all seated around the table, bowls full of cut fruit, marshmallows, nuts, and probably hardly any cereal at all. Dipper joins them, wondering what the aftereffects of riverwine are.

No one really seems hungover, but all of the girls want to recount and compare their strange dreams, visions, and ideas as they devour their breakfast like they haven't eaten in days. They're still a little bright-eyed and odd, but then again, how does a guy really tell when Mabel, Candy, or Grenda is being odd? And it's not as if Dipper has nothing of his own to worry about. He fucking _kissed Bill._ That is completely insane, and he doesn't even have a novel drug to blame for it. He wasn't even that drunk. Certainly not drunk enough to kiss anyone he didn't already feel like kissing, and that means that he already felt like kissing Bill, and he's not sure what to do with that information.

Thinking it over, he doesn't notice Mabel watching him all through breakfast. As always, she sidles up to Dipper's secrets, not even betraying her interest until Grenda and Candy have both gone home for fresh clothes and tranquility. Dipper tries to make his escape after them, but freezes in the middle of digging his keys out of the couch cushions when Mabel says, "What happened?" in such a knowing tone that Dipper looks guilty before it occurs to him that he could pretend nothing had. "Ha, I knew it!" she crows, and Dipper grimaces. When is he going to stop falling for that?

"It wasn't a big deal," he grumbles, and starts to work his keyring loose from where the metal is snagged on the upholstery. When they were kids he would have tried harder to deny it, but these days he has the sense not to waste his energy. Besides, he should probably talk about it with _someone._ He's still kneeling on the floor, because it's easier to look at the couch than another person. Even if it is Mabel, who knows exactly what he's doing. 

She sits down on the floor beside him, and pats his shoulder. "You kissed Bill, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little," Dipper mutters. "He told me to call him when I was sober."

"He better not have said it in a mean way," Mabel growls, and Dipper laughs, risking a glance over at her.

"No, sis, not in a mean way. Thanks, though."

"Well, that's awesome, then! You should totally call him."

"...And say what?"

Mabel groans, rolling her eyes heavenward. "Boys are fucking hopeless. And besides, this is Bill. He's not exactly shy or laconic."

Dipper has to let out a quiet laugh at that, and finally gets his keys loose. "True. But I never know what to say to girls, either."

"Right, because you're a hopeless boy. I just feel like Bill will step up to the plate."

"Maybe so," Dipper admits, getting up and collecting his things. 

He promises to tell Mabel how it went, and leaves to go home and brood. He doesn't want to wake Bill, and that gives him an excuse to worry about it for another hour before he locks his door, stretches out on his bed, and makes the call. He watches the shadow of the tree outside on his ceiling, and sort of hopes that he'll go straight to voicemail.

"Dipper?" Bill murmurs into his ear, and Dipper can feel himself blushing again.

"Hey," he says. "How are you? Nobody at Mabel's was too hungover."

"Lovely!" Bill chirps, and Dipper chuckles. "Our whole contingent got home all right, although Amorphous Shape says sie's still tripping a little. Sie doesn't have to work today," he adds, and Dipper smiles.

"What about you?"

"Not until eight. Would you like to come over for a sober conversation?"

Dipper wonders if he's being propositioned, thinks about how excruciating and how necessary a sober conversation about that kiss is going to be, and sighs. "Sure," he says. "I guess we do need to talk."

"You don't have to sound like that about it," Bill says. "We haven't even really argued yet. Come over, I'll make us brunch and we can argue about it."

"This puts me at two below par if these are dates," Dipper says, and immediately regrets it, cringing.

"Yes," Bill says, and Dipper can hear his smile, which makes things better and worse at the same time, "yes, it does. What a pleasing thought. I know you're a man of integrity." He pauses. "You don't actually owe me anything, for the record. I'm just teasing you."

"I thought so," Dipper says, trying not to laugh.

"You do take things seriously sometimes," Bill says, "and as a senior oneiromancer, I have a very real responsibility for you."

"I know," Dipper says, and it's a warm feeling in his belly that for now is best left unexamined.


	19. Chapter 19

Dipper takes a fast shower and calls Mabel, once he's dressed again. She shrieks her joy at his plans loud enough to deafen him if he hadn't held the phone away from his ear when he heard her breathe in.

"You done?" he asks after a few seconds of silence.

"For now!" Mabel chirps. "So, what are you wearing?"

Dipper glances down at his GET WEIRD t-shirt and torn jeans. "Uh, clothes?"

"For fuck's sake, Dipper. Go into your bathroom, put a dime-sized dollop of that green goop I gave you into your hair, and comb it."

"I'm just going to wear a hat anyway."

"Humor me!"

Dipper sighs and obeys, setting his phone on the bathroom counter as he drags a comb through his hair to the usual lack of effect. "Now what?" he asks, picking the phone up again.

"I'd tell you to put on a better shirt, but it's hot out and it would just clash with the hat. Make sure you don't stink," she says, and Dipper rolls his eyes.

"I just showered! Jeez, Mabel."

"We need to cover all the bases in this if you want to even round second with Bill, Dipper," she says, very seriously. Dipper chokes on his own spit, and ends up laughing and coughing at the same time for almost a minute.

"You done?" Mabel asks.

"Yeah, yeah, I think I can breathe. You're sure you don't want him for yourself?"

"Shut up, you sound like a creepy soap opera twin, and get going!"

"I can't until you hang up, now, can I?" Dipper croons, and grins as the call ends. 

The joy of annoying Mabel helps him to actually leave the house and head for 1313 Aldebaran. His nerves come back on the way, though, and he's more than a little tense by the time he finally emerges from the maze of tiny streets into the courtyard of Bill's apartment complex. It feels like the route is different every time, but at least he remembers the way to Bill's door, with its gleaming rainbow eye. He knocks lightly, and a second later the door opens, like Bill was lurking directly on the other side. That's a pretty creepy thought, but Dipper is a little too stunned to pay much attention to it. Bill has dressed for the weather and the occasion in a fluttery little sundress that shows off every lean inch of his mile-long legs, and he beams at Dipper.

"Delectable human!" he cries, and pulls Dipper into the apartment, which is neater than the other times Dipper has seen it.

"Uh. Hey. You look good." Dipper can't think of anything more intelligent to say, but Bill's smile only widens.

"Thank you!" He's so beautiful that it's ridiculous, and Dipper feels like he did at his first school dance, sweaty-palmed and hopeless. He's glad to let Bill take him by the hand and lead him to the table, where a pitcher of blackberryade is already waiting. Bill tells him to make himself comfortable and to pour for both of them, and then pads back into the kitchen.

"You don't want to overcook eggs," he calls, "so I've been waiting on these! It should only be about five minutes!"

"Take your time!" Dipper calls over the quiet sizzling, and carefully pours two tall, sweating glasses of blackberryade. He takes a long, cooling sip, and sternly reminds himself not to freak out. In the tiny kitchen Bill is singing in Zanglish, something that sounds like an EDM remix of opera, with strange quavers and drops. Dipper has just decided that he kind of likes it when it's over, Bill bearing a loaded plate in each hand as he comes to the table.

"Country eggs," Bill says, setting Dipper's plate in front of him, "toast, and some Zanglish bacon."

Country eggs are scrambled with several strange vegetables and some kind of caviar, the toast is black bread with his choice of cabbage chutney or fruit preserves, and Zanglish bacon is the thickest Dipper has ever seen, cured with strange spices. Everything is weird and delicious at the same time, and Bill just laughs when Dipper says so.

"Believe me," he says, "I'm very pleased to watch you acquire a taste for anything Zanglish."

Dipper can feel himself blushing, and asks about the history of country eggs in pure self-defense. It works, at least, and Bill tells him all about the ingredients available in rural Zanglish communities and austerity cooking from after the second World War up to about ten years after their exit from the USSR. Country eggs can be made with whatever else is available, even if it's just half of an old beet or a handful of minnow-sized fish.

"Or moths," Bill says. "There's one kind that's very good, but I don't think they have an English name and I forget the Latin one. I always liked hunting them as a child, because I got to stay up late."

"Warn me if you feed me bugs, okay?" Zanglish cuisine has many more insect-based dishes than anywhere else in the region, and Dipper is still working up to eating heads "I try to be open-minded, but I'm a squeamish American, I'll have to steel myself." He can only hope that sounds normal, since his stomach is fluttering a little at the thought of Bill cooking for him, which is just fucking ridiculous.

Bill smiles softly. "Of course, darling." The endearment rolls off his tongue like the trilling call of a bird, completely natural despite being just what a sitcom wife would say. Dipper squirms.

"Thanks," he says quietly, and he can feel his face going hot. Damn it. He turns his attention to his plate again, because that seems safest.

"You really are a precious thing," Bill murmurs, and Dipper's face only gets hotter.

"Thanks, I think," he mumbles, and finishes his brunch, leaping up and taking the plate to the kitchen to rinse it off and struggle with his nonexistent chill. Bill joins him in an unhurried way that fills Dipper with gratitude. He rinses his own plate and talks about the weather like this is all completely normal, and when he gets around to asking if Dipper wants to watch _The World As We Know It_ , a sort of Zanglish-produced _How It's Made_ , he leaps at the opportunity. It doesn't seem like date material, but it also seems like it will fade into the background if given a chance, and that's about all he can ask for right now.


	20. Chapter 20

It really is fucking stupid to be so nervous, sitting here on a broken down old couch covered in a glittery rainbow throw and watching as Bill picks out one of several discs of _The World As We Know It_. This one is apparently about why Zangland's handmade heirloom lamps are so richly decorated and strangely shaped, among other things.

"My grandnaffer makes them for sale," Bill says, settling in next to Dipper and putting a casual arm around his shoulders. 

For a moment Dipper worries that this isn't just an excuse to make out and that he'll be expected to pay attention, but then Bill is leaning in to nuzzle his stubble and he knows they're on the same page. He sighs, turning his face to catch Bill's mouth in a kiss. It's not really that much different from other kisses in his life, and that's a very soothing thought. Bill breaks away after a moment in favor of rubbing his face along Dipper's jaw like a friendly cat, and he laughs.

"What is it with you and my hairiness? Do you honestly like it that much?"

"How can I not delight in the sensation of your glorious pelt?" Bill purrs, straddling Dipper's lap and completely blocking the screen that they've both been ignoring for some time now. "Clearly you are clean and free from parasites as well as beautiful."

Dipper has to laugh at that, but then shivers and gazes up at Bill, settling his hands on his hips. They are curvy for a guy, and Dipper wishes he was was bold enough to just grab that round ass and feel it up properly, but that's way too forward, and he settles for his present grip, smiling as Bill rubs his smooth face against Dipper's stubbly one again. 

"Mmmmm, so silky-prickly-soft... You really have no idea," he says, voice going husky and dark. 

Dipper shivers and then laughs as Bill actually licks his face. The crazy bastard does it like it's totally normal, and then does it again, like he wants to taste all of Dipper's stubble. He bites gently at Dipper's jawline and it stops being funny as he continues on to bite Dipper's neck, high, right under the jaw.

"Oh..." Dipper can't help the sound, tipping his head back, and Bill makes a feline little noise of delight. Bill covers his throat in kisses and gentle bites, and Dipper bites his lip, keeping back a whimper that would be too loud and too raw if he let it out. Bill is pushing up his shirt now, and Dipper pants harshly. "Fffuck, you really do like the hairy."

"I told you, Dipper," Bill says, muffled because he has that pretty face of his buried in Dipper's chest, "your virile and manly chestfur is very attractive. Scratchy-soft as the wool of baby Zanglish goats, as pretty as the first fragile blooms of the iceflower..."

"I thought you said it was virile and manly," Dipper gasps, and Bill laughs.

"Americans," he says, in tones of deepest affection for the benighted and imperfect. "Just trust me, Dipper. My soul has longed for this at least since the Fearamid." 

After that he's too busy sucking and biting and gently tugging to talk, and Dipper tries to steel himself for the moment when Bill will inevitably find his way to a nipple and figure out what it does to Dipper. In a moment he does, and Dipper can't help a high, pained-sounding moan as Bill latches on and sucks. It's almost too much, but it feels too good for Dipper to stop it. Instead he grabs Bill's ass the way he had wanted to earlier, because fuck it, if they're going this far they're going this far. He glories in the low, happy growl that it draws from Bill's throat. Dipper grips and squeezes for a long moment, and then slides his hands down to feel Bill's thighs, all lean muscle. He gives them a squeeze too before shifting his greedy hands back up.

Bill shivers happily and then his eyes flash yellow, the glass one just as bright as the flesh, a beautiful and disconcerting effect. "May I lick your aura, Dipper?" he murmurs, his voice touched with the strange tone it sometimes has in dreams.

Dipper shivers, gazing into those uncanny eyes. "O-okay," he whispers, not even sure what it will feel like. 

A long, impossible tongue of golden light slides out of Bill's mouth, and Dipper's heart pounds with a mixture of lust and fear. He can't see his own aura, but that tongue starts perilously low, and then makes one long, loving stroke all the way up to Dipper's forehead. It never actually touches him, floating about one inch off, but it's all Dipper can do not to cry out, pleasure radiating across his entire body. He's already hard, but this makes him grind up against Bill, slow and rough and completely automatic. For a second the only thing he can control is his voice, letting out a tiny, strangled whimper rather than anything louder. When he's still again, he clings to Bill, panting. When he can open his eyes again, he sees that Bill's eyes and tongue are now back to normal.

"Fffuck," Dipper manages at last, and Bill kisses him.

"Okay?" he asks, more softly than Dipper would have thought he was capable of. "It can be too much for normal human nervous systems sometimes."

Dipper shakes his head, still clinging. "No, no, it was good, but we should probably stop now." He can't help but be a little worried about Bill's reaction. Not that he'll get mean or violent or anything, but that he'll be horribly disappointed and hurt. On the contrary, he smiles at Dipper and kisses his forehead.

"Okay!" he chirps, and Dipper lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "We should probably separate to cool off," Bill adds, not actually moving. He's hard too, all pressed up against Dipper and apparently not the least bit embarrassed. "I can go to my room, or you can go to Pyronica's room and play with her modeling clay. She said it was all right," he adds, and Dipper smiles. "Or either of us can hang out in the courtyard."

Dipper goes for the last option, and Bill gets off of him so he can get up and adjust his clothes before going to the bathroom to wash off the slobber. He stares into his own dilated eyes in the mirror for a long moment, and takes a few deep breaths before splashing his face with cold water and thinking very hard about the Periodic Table until he feels ready to step out into the world again. Bill is nowhere in sight, and Dipper slips out into the courtyard to admire the massive black tree and to bake in the golden summer sun.

In the end, the day is so hot that Dipper only lasts a few minutes in the courtyard before taking Pyronica up on her invitation to modeling clay. Naturally, she has extremely bright colors, and they're fun to twist together to form the basis of psychedelic tabby cats. Mabel is the real artist, Dipper's cats are lumpy and strange-looking, but he has fun making them, and sets them next to some mushrooms and strange creatures that are clearly Pyronica's work.


	21. Chapter 21

"Tell me everything!" Mabel demands, pointing her fork at Dipper. "Cheesy goodness will not protect you!"

"And to think I slaved over real oven-baked macaroni for my ungrateful sister," Dipper mourns, as if he hasn't eaten almost exactly as much of it as she has. And as if he hadn't offered to bring Mabel dinner in the first place as a pretext to talk about Bill-related things in privacy. But not all the Bill-related things. Just some of them. There are certain Bill-related things that Dipper is going to keep to himself, thank you very much.

Mabel puts her fork down and spreads her hands in exasperation, the gesture large and dangerous to the stability of their drinks. "I'm dying over here, Dipper! Yes or no questions: did you guys kiss again?"

Dipper sighs. The yes/no thing comes in handy at times like this, but it's a little embarrassing to need it in the first place, to be so awkward and childlike about this stuff. "Yes," he mutters.

Mabel beams, resting her chin in her hands. "Awesome. Did you stay at first base?"

Dipper can feel himself blushing, and glances away. "No."

Mabel squeals with delight. "Awesome! Second?"

"Yes," Dipper says, and does not put his hand to his chest. The incidental erection contact had been too brief and too clothed to count for third, however nice it had been. That fact is still filed under Miscellaneous Orientation Data, for later review.

"Wow, good job, Bill!"

Dipper rolls his eyes. "I'm not a carnival game."

Mabel grins. "But I could be your barker! Step right up, step right up and try your luck at this, the game of kings: Outrage Dipper's Virtue!" Her voice rolls like a real carnival barker's, and she forms an imaginary sign for this star attraction with her expressive hands.

Dipper snorts. "Please, I'm too shy to be that big of a slut."

"Also, people are too lame for that," Mabel says, in tones of great decision as she turns her attention back to her plate. "Hardly any of them are good enough for my precious baby brother." Her tone is flip, but the words actually do make Dipper feel kind of warm inside.

"Thanks, sis," he says, and she glances up again, grinning at him.

"You're still pink," she says, and Dipper groans and rubs his face.

"Not everyone can be as shameless as you are," he says, and Mabel laughs.

"The people have a right to know, Mr. Pines!"

Dipper sticks his tongue out at her. "No further comment."

"Seriously, though, how are you doing with this whole realizing you're bi thing?" she asks, imaginary pen poised over an imaginary pad.

Dipper snorts. "I thought the hip thing now was to be so over labels," he says, and Mabel rolls her eyes.

"That's really only if none of them fit, people are just posers."

Dipper sighs. "I really don't know, okay? And it doesn't matter."

Sitting in a gay bar two days days later and waiting for Bill, Dipper has to admit to himself that the labels matter at least a little, because he feels like an awkward straight man who shouldn't be here. He sits on the end stool and nervously chews on the straw that came with his Jack and Pitt. Bill had said that he might be a little late, but of course it feels eternal. Listening to the techno and watching neon-haired twinks grinding on each other, Dipper has to wonder why in the hell he agreed to this. Whatever he is, he's not the right kind of gay for this place.

"First time out?" a boy with blazing green hair asks Dipper, coming up to lean on the bar beside him.

"First time here, anyway," Dipper says, and the boy grins.

"It gets easier," he says. "Buy you a drink?"

Dipper does a quick mental conversion of the boy into a girl and shakes his head, even with the background knowledge of how weirdly calm Bill is. "Doesn't seem gentlemanly, but thanks anyway," he says. "I'm waiting for my date."

The boy giggles. "So classy! I hope he appreciates it."

Dipper shrugs. "I'll have to ask. He's Zanglish, so I can't be sure how chivalry is supposed to work. Or if he even thinks it's relevant."

"Yeah, I have no idea how Zanglish _anything_ works," the boy says, wrinkling his nose. "I get that they have their own culture, but a lot of them are just too faggy. I mean, androgynous is one thing, but full-on femme is just so--" he pauses, searching for the right word, and Dipper raises an eyebrow at him. Mabel can get a bit strident about queer misogyny, but it doesn't mean Dipper disagrees with her.

"I'm not sure he counts as full-on femme," Dipper says, as pleasantly as he can.

"Not that you're up on your gayology," the boy says, not unkindly. He's about to go on when Bill's voice cuts through the music and the noise.

"Darling!" he trills, his voice syrupy sweet as he slips through the crowd to appear at Dipper's elbow. 

He's in real drag tonight, made up enough that Dipper would think he was a tall, skinny girl if he didn't know him. Okay, and if he wasn't in a gay bar right now, but still. It's somewhere between off-putting and amazing, and he can't do much more than stare like an idiot. It's not like he didn't know Bill had great legs, but there's something about the inevitable slide of them under his skirt as he settles onto the stool beside Dipper that catches his eye and holds it long enough for him to feel like an asshole. He ducks over his cup and works on collecting himself as Bill beams across him at the green-haired boy, who seems to abruptly remember an important dentist appointment. 

Bill makes a quiet sound of amusement and rests his platform boots on the rail beside Dipper's sneakers, setting his matching purse on the bar and leaning over to give Dipper a sticky-slick vanilla-flavored kiss. "Sorry I'm late," he murmurs, and Dipper just laughs, wiping gloss from his own mouth with a cocktail napkin, pocketing it like a keepsake before he can think better of it.

"No harm done," he says, and Bill tilts his head, studying him.

"I guess not," he murmurs at last, as if Dipper had been completely serious, and it makes him smile.

"So... what's with the full rig? You look great," he hastens to add, and a slow, deeply pleased smile spreads across Bill's face. The look is a little inhuman, all poreless skin and glossy lips, but Pacifica used to do that kind of thing, so it's kind of like Dipper's own little cottage on the edge of the Uncanny Valley.

"It's a bit much," Bill says, as if he's reading Dipper's mind, "but it's fun sometimes, and I had to know if it would make you panic or laugh at me."

"Look," Dipper says, taking Bill's elaborately-manicured hand, "I may be bad at being gay, but I'm not going to judge your hobbies."

Bill smiles at him, the expression much softer and more shy than usual. "That's what I thought," he says, "but I had to check." His smile widens into a grin. "Besides, it would either bring us closer or send you screaming for the hills. If I don't get my best possible outcome, at least it's funny."


	22. Chapter 22

They don't last long in the gay bar. Maybe they would have in a different sort of establishment, but Dipper can't dance and a lot of the clientele apparently won't dance with drag queens. Each dismissive rejection makes Dipper want to go punch some manners into the guy making it, but Bill just responds with a look of slightly contemptuous pity every time. At last he comes back to the bar, settling onto the stool beside Dipper and pulling a compact out of his purse. Again, there's that weird, comforting sense of familiarity. Dipper isn't used to drag at all, but he is used to girls. He watches as Bill carefully reapplies his purple lip gloss.

"Everyone here is determined not to have a good time, Dipper," he says, with a mournful sigh as he puts the compact away. "I feel like we can't remain longer in the presence of such anti-party energy. Not without better drugs and at least one accordion, anyway." He pauses, looking thoughtful. He raises one finger as the bartender goes by, and the man nods. "Perhaps some jelly and a human skull full of bees," Bill adds says while they await his return.

Dipper does his best not to choke on his drink. "...I can't even tell when you're serious sometimes," he says, and Bill laughs.

"Human skulls full of bees are great at parties, don't be silly!"

Dipper has read a few mentions of this practice, but it has always been couched as something from an at least century-distant past. Then again, so have onieromancers. "...Are these the same ones where the bees are possessed by the soul of an ancestor?"

"Yes, and ancestral souls love to party!"

Dipper has no idea where a couple like himself and Bill should go if not a gay bar, so after they finish their drinks, he just follows Bill out as he lays out various possibilities. Out under the streetlights he's... distracting, his long, elegant hands dancing in the air as he discusses their options, his hips swaying as he struts along in his ludicrous boots.

"...and the Midnight Aquarium is still open because all the animals are nocturnal, but we might as well go _after_ the opal jelly eggs hatch, and Hatbox is having an event and is probably crowded to the edges of the fire code if not past them..."

"I hear this is lame, but we could find a late movie?" Dipper says, scurrying a little to catch up with Bill's leggy strides.

"We don't have to interact _all_ the time," Bill says, just barely slowing as he takes Dipper's hand, "but I'm in favor of more over less tonight."

Dipper can feel his face and the tips of his ears getting hot, but he laces his fingers with Bill's because embarrassed is not ashamed. "Okay."

They just walk hand-in-hand for a good while, since it's a nice night. It's warm enough that a tiny hole in the wall selling the Zanglish-style snow cones that are everywhere these days is doing a brisk business, and Dipper buys for both of them. Strolling onward and crunching syrupy ice and various add-ins, the topic of bowling somehow comes up, and Dipper mentions that he and Mabel used to be pretty good when they were kids. Apparently Bill was too, and before Dipper can think much better of it, Bill has hailed a cab and asked the driver to take them to the nearest open bowling alley.

"Are you sure this is such a great idea?" Dipper asks, as they approach the door. The place's parking lot is full of trucks and there's a reek of determined blue-collar masculinity that sets Dipper's teeth on edge. He has a feeling that at least half the people here are the type to think that guys like Dipper and Bill just need a good beating to set them straight.

"Maybe not great," Bill says, holding the door for Dipper, "but passable, anyway. I wonder if we can get onion rings here."

Dipper is pretty tense as Bill blithely strolls up to the snack bar, but while the place goes quiet for a moment, no one actually yells anything, and if the grizzled old man taking the orders doesn't smile, he does answer Bill's questions about split orders and available condiments politely. Dipper is very glad that he doesn't have to go get his head thumped for Bill's honor, and once Bill has his basket of onion rings with a little cup of Thousand Island dressing, they can embark on the rest of their adventure. Bill trades his platform boots for bowling shoes as if he does it every day, and they stake out the last lane on the left, many of the others filled with leagues of middle-aged men with their names stitched into their shirts.

Against all expectations, Dipper actually has a good time. He and Bill are about evenly matched in bowling prowess, and the neighboring men are actually very nice about the drag queen with the rainbow glitter ball, and applaud when he makes a strike. Bill beams at them, and fearlessly takes Dipper's hand when it's time to leave, lacing his slender fingers with Dipper's.

"See?" he coos. "We lived!"

"I guess we did," Dipper says, squeezing his hand. 

He's still a little worried about getting bashed in the parking lot, but there's no one around even to notice them, and they make it into another cab without incident. This one takes them back to the bar rather than to Dipper's house, since it's a lot cheaper to get on the back of Bill's moped for the last leg of the journey home. Any alcohol has long since worn off, and Bill drives with the adroit alertness of a man high on nothing but life and cherry cola. Dipper clings to his waist and tries not to think of what a massive safety hazard those long, bare legs are. Bill skims through the balmy summer night like they're both immortal, but also like they have all the time in the world.

The quiet is sudden when they pull up to Dipper's porch and Bill kills the engine. They just sit there for a moment and then Dipper hops off, unbuckling Pyronica's helmet and wondering if his roommates are watching. He doesn't really care what they think, but it's good to know if he's going to walk into a barrage of teasing or not. He doesn't see anyone at the window, and smiles, turning to Bill, who smiles back and takes the helmet, strapping it to the bike and then removing his own, getting off the bike and offering Dipper his arm. Dipper laughs and takes it, letting Bill escort him up to his own door. Under the outside lamp he stops, and gazes down at Dipper, cupping the side of his face in one one hand. Dipper sighs and leans into him, and Bill kisses him. It's sweet and slow and goes on for its own soft eternity. It takes Dipper a long moment to open his eyes afterward, and Bill smiles at him, looking utterly content. And then Bill's eyes widen in sudden surprise.

"I can't believe I almost forgot!" He runs down to the moped so fast that Dipper fears for his ankles in those boots, and then comes bolting back up the steps, holding his purse. He shrugs it onto his shoulder and pulls a leather pouch out of it. "Since I am trying to court you, you get a courting gift!" He hands it over and waits expectantly. 

When Dipper takes the pouch it feels like it's full of little, hard, rounded things, a bit like marbles, but lumpier. It is with great trepidation that he tips a few of them out and into his hand. They're smooth and brown and subtly ridged, and at first he has no idea what he's even looking at.

Bill gives him the biggest grin he has ever seen in his life. "Deer teeth! For you!"


End file.
